Customer Reviews

Bosch (Hieronymus) the Complete Works

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This magnificent (33 by 25 cm) 513 page book must be the most insightful, the most imaginative, the most comprehensive and the most lavishly illustrated scholarly work about Hieronimus (or Jeroen) Bosch available. And it will remain so for a long time to come, probably.
The layout is very clear. It begins with a short chapter on the known records about the family history and biography from 1462 until about 1575. After that there folows a description the catalogue of works attributed to Bosch and the methods with which we could come to a more difinitive list of the works that can be attributed unequivocally to him. After that comes a description of Bosch' schooling and the sources that we have to corroborate this. Folowing that there comes a very useful summary of all the different interpretations of Bosch' oeuvre, the whole Bosch-exegesis over the centuries, in a strictly chronological order from 'before 1563' until '1986' which is followed by a nice summing up - in an overarching view - of some of these different interpretations or methods of research by the author himself. Lastly, before really beginning his detailed description of all Bosch' works, the author - in 'A Trial of Interpretation' - shortly underpins his own method of interpretation in the chapters to follow, where he stresses the need for reserve and not to be wanting to try to 'lute all the gaps in our knowledge with guesses and hypotheses of our own fabrication'.
After these 'chapters', the book is devided into sections where all the different works are ordered into four types, namely 'Triptychs', 'Fragments of Triptychs', 'Independent Works (or Panels)' and 'Disputed Attributations'. These chapters all follow the same very clear and insightful method of interpretation. The author first of all starts each chapter with a short introduction and the goes on to a meticulous description and interpretation of all the works themselves. At the start of each of these chapters describing a particular work, there is a colour-reproduction of the complete work under scrutiny. He does this in the most erudite and insightful manner possible, giving a detailed description of the history of interpretation as well as firmly placing it within its o w n time and history. After this description there follows a beautiful array of full page details from the same work with very insightful quotes from books of that same age which describe in a way what we are seeing in that very same detail of Bosch' work. Or sometimes the author even gives a description of specific social, political, or economical situations of that time that one should know to be able to understand exactly what it is we see depicted.
All in all this is a book that is made with the highest care and love for and insight in the genius Jeroen Bosch' fantastic and colorful oeuvre. There is no other book about his works in which so many gorgeous detail is visible. The pages dedicated to page-wide details of the Garden of Earthly Delights alone spreads for 50 pages!
If you love Bosch' works, if you want to know everything that is to know about it and if you want to revel in its unique, colorful and imaginative beauty (for lack of the better alternative, which is to go and look at the paintings themselves, of course), you should try and find this book for yourself immediately!