Hieronymus Bosch The Complete

In the Late Gothic and Early Renaissance, Hieronymus Bosch (c. 1450-1516) stood apart. His paintings teem with grotesque scenes of fantastical creatures indulging in human desire, fantasy, and angst. He transformed drolleries, monstrous illustrations of sin, from manuscript margins to large-format panels.

Bosch populated his works with traditional hybrids like centaurs, mythological creatures like unicorns, devils, dragons, and griffins, and countless invented creatures. Many scenes illustrate proverbs and figures of speech of Bosch’s time. For example, in The Temptation of St. Anthony, a messenger devil on ice skates evokes the saying that the world was “skating on ice,” meaning it had gone astray.

Jheronimus van Aken, or Bosch, was widely copied, with followers’ works exceeding his own tenfold. Only 20 paintings and eight drawings are confidently attributed to Bosch. He is seen as a visionary, a portrayer of dreams and nightmares, and the painter of hell and its demons.

This exhaustive book, published for the 500th anniversary of Bosch’s death, features new photography of recently restored paintings and covers Bosch’s complete works. Discover his pictorial inventions in splendid reproductions, with copious details and a huge fold-out spread, over 110 cm (43 in.) long, of The Garden of Earthly Delights. Art historian and Bosch expert Stefan Fischer examines Bosch’s immense influence.