While Pokorny’s interpretation of the meaning of the Garden of Earthly Delights is somewhat unclear and peripheral to his topic, his essay raises compelling points about how illuminated manuscripts could be a source for Bosch’s oversized fruits his depiction of flowers and hybrids and his strange creatures, figure types, and thematic combinations.

The author advances not only familiar claims that Bosch brings the drolleries in the margins of manuscripts into his paintings, but also proposes that Bosch borrowed specific motifs, ideas, compositions, and stylistic techniques from manuscripts to the degree that Bosch could well have trained as an illuminator. The final section considers Bosch’s use of caricatures to emphasize depravity in scenes of Christ’s Passion and Bosch’s depictions of the temptations of sin within worldly life in the Haywain, Garden of Earthly Delights, and Wayfarer Triptychs-and on how these works influenced other artists, especially Quinten Massijs.Įrwin Pokorny’s, “Illuminated Manuscripts as a Main Source of Hieronymus Bosch,” argues for a deeper connection between Bosch’s work and manuscript illumination than previously thought. The focus then turns to a consideration of Bosch’s interest in the origins of evil in works that depict the Fall of the Rebel Angels and an already corrupted Eden. The essay begins with an in-depth study of evil within the Prado Adoration of the Magi one notable claim here is the association of the semi-nude figure in the stable (the subject of much scholarly debate) with Jewish stereotypes. Larry Silver’s essay, “Bosch and the World of Sin,” provides a strong opening to the book by giving an overview of Bosch’s oeuvre, centering on the critical issue of how Bosch infuses the Netherlandish tradition with a new sense of evil and pessimism. Anthony and the Garden of Earthly Delights-were not included in the exhibition, copies after both were. Although the two triptychs highlighted in these latter essays-the Lisbon Temptations of St. Of the four essays in the Budapest catalog, two have thematic content, and two focus on individual triptychs. Like the Madrid catalog, the 2022 Budapest catalog begins with essays, most written by the same distinguished scholars who contributed to the earlier volume.

This book represents the first major exhibition catalog produced after the 2016 celebration of the 500 th anniversary of Bosch’s death, which occasioned the publication of catalogs from exhibitions in ‘s-Hertogenbosch and Madrid.

Hieronymus Bosch by Larry Silver