Hieronymus Bosch
Hieronymus Bosch (, ; born Jheronimus van Aken ; – 9 August 1516) was a Dutch/Netherlandish painter from Brabant. He is one of the most notable representatives of the Early Netherlandish painting school. His work, generally oil on oa ...
painting made between 1505 and 1515.
It is located in the
Gallerie dell'Accademia
The Gallerie dell'Accademia is a museum gallery of pre-19th-century art in Venice, northern Italy. It is housed in the Scuola della Carità on the south bank of the Grand Canal, within the sestiere of Dorsoduro. It was originally the gallery o ...
in
Venice
Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...
, Italy. This painting is part of a
polyptych
A polyptych ( ; Greek: ''poly-'' "many" and ''ptychē'' "fold") is a painting (usually panel painting) which is divided into sections, or panels. Specifically, a "diptych" is a two-part work of art; a "triptych" is a three-part work; a tetrapty ...
of four panels entitled ''Visions of the Hereafter''. The others are ''
Terrestrial Paradise
In Abrahamic religions, the Garden of Eden ( he, גַּן־עֵדֶן, ) or Garden of God (, and גַן־אֱלֹהִים ''gan-Elohim''), also called the Terrestrial Paradise, is the biblical paradise described in Genesis 2-3 and Ezekiel 28 an ...
Hell
In religion and folklore, hell is a location in the afterlife in which evil souls are subjected to punitive suffering, most often through torture, as eternal punishment after death. Religions with a linear divine history often depict hell ...
''.
Formal analysis
The most intriguing element of this painting is the large tunnel at the top of the panel. It appears from the perspective of looking through a straw and into the heavenly beyond. As Stephen Hitchens writes, it could also be described as a “funnel of goodness and light sa source of variety and surprise capturing the visionary and ecstatic union with God.”Hitchens, ''Art as History, History as Art,'' 109. The three dimensional tunnel gives the viewer a peek of the “white light” from Heaven with three figures waiting at the end for the blessed. The near side of the tunnel has one angel carrying a human soul towards the pearly gates. The viewer can differentiate the two figures because one has a white robe with wings and the other is naked, thus a soul and an angel. Both have their hands in prayer formation.
Right beneath the tunnel, there is an array of angels helping blessed human souls towards salvation. In the lower parts of the panel there are two angels per one soul, suggesting that some humans need more help than others. As it gets closer to the top of the panel, there is a one to one ratio of angel and soul. This might symbolize that the human souls that are pulled from Earth's gravity and towards the tunnel become lighter in weight. The angels have their hands either on the human body carrying it upwards or near the body simply guiding it where to go. All the figures in the painting are looking upwards towards the tunnel.
All the characters have similar facial features because the physical aspect of the humans and angels are more idealized and not individualized. The figures are not meant to look like specific individual people. The style of the hair is also quite idealized; the angels have long wavy hair and the souls have short hair. None of the human souls have organs to help differentiate whether they are male or female. This could be a form of symbolism which shows that there are no genders in Heaven. This could be implying that all human souls are no longer differentiated by sexual organs and everyone is the same. The angels have a multitude of different colored robes and wings, such as subtle reds, blues, and greens.
The painting as a whole is very dimly lit which contrasts with the white brightness at the end of the tunnel. The light at the end of the tunnel is not the light that lights up the bottom of the painting, which is most likely the earthly realm. The extreme darkness directly around the tunnel indicates that the heavenly light has nothing to do with the light coming from below. The areas outside the tunnel are dark and gray. The light actually becomes darker as it moves upwards then when it reaches the tunnel there is a sudden eruption of light. Coincidentally, this painting of the funnel has been known to look very similar to people who have had near-death experiences. During the fifteenth-century, the entrance to paradise was depicted as a funnel which appeared in many miniatures. The shape of the radiant funnel actually has some resemblance to contemporary zodiac diagrams but Bosch transforms it into a shining corridor through which the blessed approach God.Gibson, ''Hieronymus Bosch,'' 64.
Historical context
Bosch's paintings reflect the religious themes that dominated art and society in the
Netherlands
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during the sixteenth century, especially the
Catholic
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
religion. Almost everyone's duty was to behave and act like a good Catholic so that they could ascend into heaven. The consequences of sin were made so awful to frighten the faithful obedience into people with the ultimate punishments of weakening in purgatory and being sent to Hell. According to Reuterswärd, the limited number of people being admitted into Heaven “illustrates the remarkable specification contained in a treatise entitled ''Van der Vorsieningkeit Godes'', which circulated in the Netherlands in Bosch’s time, that out of 30,000 souls only two were likely to reach Heaven.” Whether Bosch read this
treatise
A treatise is a formal and systematic written discourse on some subject, generally longer and treating it in greater depth than an essay, and more concerned with investigating or exposing the principles of the subject and its conclusions."Treat ...
will never be known for sure, however it is known that there was a high number of
monks
A monk (, from el, μοναχός, ''monachos'', "single, solitary" via Latin ) is a person who practices religious asceticism by monastic living, either alone or with any number of other monks. A monk may be a person who decides to dedicat ...
and nuns that lived in his home city. It was even called “a pious city” because of its high quantity of
confraternities
A confraternity ( es, cofradía; pt, confraria) is generally a Christians, Christian voluntary association of laity, laypeople created for the purpose of promoting special works of Christian charity or piety, and approved by the Christian Churc ...
and religious houses.
Arrangement of polyptych
Bosch scholars have other interpretations about the meaning behind these paintings, especially Ascent of the Blessed. The panels may come off straight forward and simple but there is a lot of dispute about the order of the panels and how they should be positioned in a museum. When hung in Venice in 2011, the order of the panels was '' Fall of the Damned into Hell'', ''
Hell
In religion and folklore, hell is a location in the afterlife in which evil souls are subjected to punitive suffering, most often through torture, as eternal punishment after death. Religions with a linear divine history often depict hell ...
'', space, ''
Terrestrial Paradise
In Abrahamic religions, the Garden of Eden ( he, גַּן־עֵדֶן, ) or Garden of God (, and גַן־אֱלֹהִים ''gan-Elohim''), also called the Terrestrial Paradise, is the biblical paradise described in Genesis 2-3 and Ezekiel 28 an ...
'', and ''Ascent of the Blessed''. The ''Terrestrial Paradise'' was placed on the left because it resembles other Eden panels by Bosch, especially with its landscape, fountain, and following biblical convention. There is also confusion on whether the ''Terrestrial Paradise'' is even “paradise” because it might also be Purgatory. Another possible arrangement is ''Ascent'', ''Paradise'', ''Hell'' and the ''Fall'' which takes inspiration from Matthew 25: 32–3 in the Bible. The idea is that traditionally; God directs the damned to Hell on his left side. The Bosch scholar,