A Study of the Medieval Artist - Hieronymus Bosch #2 | A Mixed Media Art Project

I wanted to share my continuation of the study of Dutch artist, Hieronymus Bosch and his works.

Since discovering that Bosch was born Jheronimus van Aken in 1450; died August 9, 1516 and lived in Brabant, I also learned that his name "Jheronimus" actually means "with a sacred name" given to him by his mother.

He is one of the most notable representatives of the Early Netherlandish painting school. Although it's believed that he received no formal, he wasn't entirely self-taught. It was widely believed that either his grandfather and/or father taught him to paint and encouraged his skills. Bosch's grandfather, father, and brothers all excelled as painters.

As reported in Wiki, Bosch's work documents the medieval period, with interpretations of hell if one lives a life of sin and suffering through redemption.

His focus is mainly on religious concepts and narratives. His themes and scenes show you the consequences of going against scripture.

It's noted that his work focuses on themes such as temptation, sin, and judgement.

His painting and drawing methods were achieved generally by oil on oak wood panels using oil as a medium.

Since his palette was limited, it contained the normal pigments of his era. He mostly used azurite for blue skies and distant landscapes. Green copper-based glazes and paints consisting of malachite or verdigris were used for foliage and foreground landscapes. Lead-tin-yellow, ochres and red lake (carmine or madder lake) were used for his figures. ²

His paintings were collected in the Netherlands, Austria, and Spain. Interest in his bizarre representation, sometimes viewed as macabre and nightmarish depictions of hell, was widespread as the attitudes of the times relaxed its strict adherence to the religious principles of thinking.

It's worth noting that according to art scholars, the art of the older masters of art was viewed as based in the physical world of everyday experience.

However, these same scholars believed Bosch addressed those experiences with an alternative view. In the words of the art historian Walter Gibson, this view was based on "a world of dreams and nightmares in which forms seem to flicker and change before our eyes".

Formless shapes where gender is obscured and animals appear to possess two or three-dimensional forms are prevalent in his works.

Today, Bosch is seen as a highly individualistic painter. His works have been attributed to an artist with deep insight into humanity's desires and deepest fears. In my view, many of the human subjects in his art are naked with elongated bodies or limbs. Their facial features are distorted as if terrorized by some trauma.

His signature can be seen on only seven of his surviving paintings.

Another of Bosch's paintings, "Triptych of the Temptation of St. Anthony" is one of the most famous Bosch's works along. This painting can be attributed directly to Bosch himself and not produced in his workshop as a few other paintings have been discovered to have originated. The theme of Saint Anthony depicts him sitting in the hollow of a tree trunk, being tempted and accosted in the desert by demons in which he ultimately resisted.

It's noted that when artists works depict temptation, the source is usually a seductive female. However, Bosch utilizes demons and other demonic spirits and items to seduce his subjects. This is true of Saint Anthony. ²

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Interpretation of Bosch's works is varied. But all scholars agree that he was a talented medieval artist that used exaggeration in the mind and body for effect. The purpose of the extreme images was believed to have originated from his religious conservative views, which he expressed as going against the will of God. By not adhering to their faith, humans would suffer the consequences.

Since the scenes in Bosch's paintings and drawings didn't depict everyday life, most scholars also agree that dreams, nightmares, and fantasies replaced the mundane and provided an escape into another world where the forces of evil rule and humans are put at odds with evil as a test of strength and faith.

A third observation deals with the deep red and dark orange prevalent in this works. It is widely speculated that the use of fire and flames resulted from Bosch witnessing his home destroyed by fire as a child. ²

One final aspect of Bosch to note is that none of his works contained dates, so dating his collection has been difficult. Some scholars have divided this work into three phases; earlier work; during his workshop he established; and his mature works.

It was during his mature stage that his iconic style featuring contorted and distorted body shapes, vivid coloring, oversized and menacing foliage, and various devils and reptiles began to reveal itself through a series of pictures of saints.²

But what's truly sad about this iconic artist is that one of the reasons few of his works survived is due to the fact that in the 16th century, members of the Protestant Reformation destroyed many works deemed immoral.

This turn of events came about because during the Protestant Reformation, immorality was discouraged and replaced by the urging that the Holy Bible was the ultimate source of authority in matters of faith, with personal and individual interpretation encouraged. The rejection of indulgences and any practicing of such as immoral. A greater accountability within the church should be practiced.

Thus, six of his works were bought or confiscated by Philip II of Spain in the end of the 16th century (now owned by the Museo del Prado in Madrid); while others emerged across Europe. ²

Destroying and separating Bosch's works have left a scattered and sketchy history of one of the most unique artists in his field.

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In my second Bosch interpretation study, I wanted to see how the stable diffusion program handled a prompt that called for strange humans, animals, and birds. I used the following text description and received four images with a mix of humans and animals.

HUMANS AND ANIMALS

Starry AI Text input:
"Strange animal and human creatures in the realm of Bosch."

Style: RealVisXL
Iterations: 50
Seed: 4593310235

StarryAI Results:

BIRDS

StarryAI Text Input:
"Strange distorted bird creatures in the realm of Bosch."

Style: RealVisXL
Quality: Fast
Seed: 7966495430

The following projects depict my interpretation of Bosch's thoughts on how humans and birds of flight should be perceived. As with animals, the humans are sometimes a mixture of half human and animals. The birds are elongated or have abnormally large bodies and grotesque wings, legs, and feet. In attempted to design other mixed media images that incorporated the same imagery.

PROJECT #1: "Locked"

In my first project, "Locked", I wanted to present a variety of woman in unusual poses. I chose a palette that matched the Bosch vague hues. The women were stable diffusion images and were produced in StarryAI. My beautiful pure fractal rounded out the theme.

#1

PROJECT #2: The Collector

In "The Collector", my vision was to have a human collect odd trinkets and animals. Some he placed upon shelves in a hidden vault. The scene is scary if you look at the variety of deformed items.

#2

PROJECT #3: "Happy Feelings"

In "Happy Feelings", I wanted to portray a hippie type scene in which the person is hallucinating.

#3

PROJECT #4: "Animal Farm"

In "Animal Farm", this scene is almost entirely the stable diffusion image with an added female that is another diffusion image. If you notice, the shepherd's face is covered. I like the variety of animals in the scene.

#4

PROJECT #5: "Forever Embraced"

In "Forever Embraced", I wanted to deviate a bit from the entire Bosch scene and only insert one human image. This time a female is hallucinating as she is surrounded by elements in her thoughts.

#5

PROJECT #6: "Jogging"

In "Jogging", a scary-eyed insect is prowling the forest. My pure fractals light up the landscape.

#6

PROJECT: #7: "Thoughts"

In "Thoughts", I felt this was a beautiful design with the various colors in the theme of Bosch. The female is a generative art product from Deep Dream Generator. As she glances over her shoulder, she's confronted with odd images.

#7

To document my project, below are the sources I included in each individual creation to accompany the Bosch images.

Project #1:
^{Pure Fractal titled "Obelisk" ~ Pure Fractal titled "Disk - Swirling Hole-Purple" ~ StarryAI Female1 ~ StarryAI Female2 ~ StarryAI - Female 3 ~ StarryAI - Female 4}

Project #2:
^{Dad Tree Eyes Trading Card ~ Fiery Eyes Hidden TradingCard ~ Green Eyes Watching TradingCard}

Project #3:
^{Surreal Woman Portrait - Contributed to the #LIL by @alex2alex ~ Playground Equipment - Gray (TelAviv) - Contributed to the #LIL by @alex2alex ~ Bicycle ~ Blue moon - Contributed to the #LIL by @mynatasha ~ Mirror waves}

Project #4:
^{StarryAI - Exquisite Beauty Tall and Graceful-Image1}

Project #5:
^{StarryAI - Angel Sitting-Image2 ~ Pure Fractal titled "Two Balls In Space" ~ Pure Fractal titled "Circle of Swords - Yellow-Burnt" ~ Mariposa butterfly - Contributed to the #LIL by @hernleon74 ~ Pink flower - Contributed to the #LIL by @hernleon74}

Project #6:
^{Robot spider Eye ~ Pure Fractal titled "Starfish of Fantasy" ~ Landscape - Contributed to the #LIL by @sachingeorge}

Project #7:
^{Deep Dream Generator - Brown Woman ~ Eye With Gray Background-image}