Bosch

Hieronymus Bosch (1450-1516) was a Dutch painter - and that is about all we really know about this man who left behind little in the way of history to judge him. We are left with only his paintings, and there are not very many of those, to try to figure out just who he was and from whence came his florid imagination. He is generally accepted by art historians to be the father of fantasy and medieval magical realism. Most of his works are in the manner of triptychs such as his most famous work 'The Garden of Earthly Delights', and seem to spill out of the canvas with endless imagination. Where he found the inspiration of the strange part animal/part human demons, or how he was able to paint some of the near naughty scenes he reveled in is up for conjecture. This book is rather short in length: there is little to write about Bosch except form an vantage of the historical incident surround his rather nebulously defined time on earth. The plates of his paintings are rather bargain basement in quality - unusual for Taschen - but at least for a small amount of money we can indulge in the fantasy that played out on his canvases. This inexpensive book is worth the investment as an introduction to the mysterious Hieronymus Bosch! Grady Harp, September 10