around 1450 -1516 · 's-Hertogenbosch and ancient Netherlands

Hybrid monsters, human sins and landscapes of dizzying invention make Hieronymus Bosch one of the most powerful imaginations in Western painting.

Jheronimus van Aken, known as Hieronymus Bosch, was born around 1450 in 's-Hertogenbosch, in the Duchy of Brabant. He belongs to a family of painters and adopts the name of his town, 's-Hertogenbosch, as his signature. Documents on his life are few in number, but they show an established craftsman, married to Aleid van de Meervenne and member of the Illustrious Brotherhood of Notre-Dame. This position connects him to the religious, civic and cultural life of the city, far from the romantic image of an isolated visionary. Bosch paints for sponsors capable of reading a visual culture nourished by sermons, proverbs, religious theater, bestiaries and beliefs from the end of the Middle Ages. His triptychs deploy human destiny between creation, temptation, fault and punishment. The Garden of Delights leads from paradise to a humanity given over to pleasures, then to a nocturnal hell where objects, animals and instruments become machines of torture. The Hay Cart organizes the universal race for earthly goods around a derisory mass. In The Temptation of Saint Anthony, the saint resists in the middle of a fragmented world, invaded by deceptive creatures and rituals. The Ship of Fools reduces society to an unstable boat whose passengers eat, sing and ignore their drift. The Ship of Fools reduces society to an unstable boat whose passengers eat, sing and ignore their drift. The Ship of Fools reduces society to an unstable boat whose passengers eat, sing and ignore their drift. Bosch's precision reduces society to an unstable boat whose passengers eat, sing and ignore their drift. The Ship of Fools reduces society to an unstable boat whose passengers eat, sing and ignore their drift. The Ship of Fools reduces society to an unstable boat whose passengers eat, sing and ignore their drift. The Ship of Fools reduces society to an unstable boat whose passengers eat, sing and ignore their drift. The Ship of Fools reduces society to an unstable boat whose passengers eat, sing and ignore their drift. The Ship of Fools reduces society to an unstable boat whose passengers eat, sing and ignore their drift. The Ship of Fools reduces society to an unstable boat whose passengers eat, sing are described with acute material logic. This invention is not a simple taste for the bizarre. It serves as a moral meditation on blindness, desire, fear and the possibility of salvation. After his death in 1516, his works were sought after by great collectors, notably Philip II of Spain, which explains the exceptional ensemble now kept at the Prado. His workshop and his imitators lastingly spread a language whose strangeness remains immediately recognizable. The "Hieronymus Bosch" selection notably compares The Garden of Delights and The Hay Cart. His reading favors composition.

Bosch gives substance to sin and fear: each hybrid, giant fruit or infernal machine makes visible a human weakness that the viewer must learn to recognize.