“Exploring the Gardens of Delights. Essays in Bosch’s Paintings and the Medieval Mental Culture”

The phantasmagoria in the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch (c. 1450-1516) has led most scholars to interpret him as some kind of heretic: an astrologist, alchemist or adamite. Scholars use the same symbols for their personal preferences. The focus in this book is on Bosch as an ardent realist in his minute attention to detail. He is a master of logically coherent motifs within the phantasmagoria of the hell scene in “The Garden of Delights”.
Bosch was evidently a man well versed in all aspects of contemporary culture. He used frightful suffering as a warning to the sinful. He is thus regarded as a great humanist in the manner of Geiler von Kaiserberg, preaching not in words but in pictures.

FF Communications 251