Hieronymus Bosch: Time and Transformation in The Garden of Earthly Delights

ISBN-10: 030027260X
ISBN-13: 9780300272604
Series: Hieronymus Bosch
Language: English
Published: 2022
Author: Margaret Deutsch Carroll

Description

"Hieronymus Bosch's (c. 1450-1516) 'Garden of Earthly Delights' has elicited a sense of wonder for centuries.... In this highly original reassessment, Margaret D. Carroll reads the Garden as a speculation about the origin of the cosmos, the life-history of earth, and the transformation of humankind from the first age of world history to the last. Upending traditional interpretations of the painting as a moralizing depiction of God's wrath, human sinfulness, and demonic agency, Carroll argues that it represents Bosch's exploration of progressive changes in the human condition and the natural world. Extensively researched and beautifully illustrated, this groundbreaking secular analysis draws on new findings about Bosch's idiosyncratic painting technique, his curiosity about natural history, his connections to the Burgundian court, and his experience of contemporary politics. The book offers fresh insights into the artist and his most beloved and elusive painting"--Publisher's description.