Matthijs
Ilsink, art historian with Hieronymus Bosch’s “Saint Christopher”
(1490–1505) at the Rotterdam Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen (image
courtesy Kino Lorber)
Roughly 30 minutes into Pieter van Huystee’s first feature-length film,
Hieronymus Bosch: Touched by the Devil,
Gabriele Finaldi, former deputy director of conservation and research
at the Museo del Prado in Madrid, gives a sterling, succinct answer as
to why El Bosco (as the Dutch artist is known in Spain) and his works
are a source of continual fascination and study:
One of the reasons why Bosch is so successful and so
admired is precisely because his work goes beyond that of a mere
illustrator. Here is a fertile, inventive mind who is doing new things
with traditional subjects and it’s that charge of originality, of
invention. … [He’s] an artist who is extraordinarily brilliant and
provides a new vision of things.
Cover
of ‘Hieronymus Bosch: Visions and Nightmares’ by Nils Büttner (Reaktion
Books, 2016) (image courtesy Reaktion Books) (click to enlarge)
Bosch
and his unique vision have certainly endured. This year marks the
quincentenary of his death (c.1450–1516), and widespread interest in the
Old Master and his oeuvre shows no sign of waning. Currently
playing at New York City’s Film Forum,
Touched by the Devil
(2015) goes behind the scenes of preparations for a celebratory,
large-scale exhibition in the artist’s hometown of ’s-Hertogenbosch at
the Noordbrabants Museum. (It
was on view
from February 13 through May 8, 2016.) The film investigates the
process of authenticating Bosch’s artworks — a premise it shares with
art historian Nils Büttner’s new book,
Hieronymus Bosch: Visions and Nightmares
(Reaktion Books, 2016). Büttner delves especially into what might have
motivated the Dutchman to paint his signature imagery of puckish demons
and the expanses between paradise and purgatory. Both the film and the
book seek to find the true Bosch, the enigmatic figure whose portrayals
of the afterlife, whether serene or infernal, serve as admonitions to
mortals concerned for their souls. His transcendental visions of heaven
and hell have saturated the consciousness of admirers for over 500
years.
The documentary begins with the
Bosch Research and Conservation Project
(BRCP), as its members travel to multiple sites across Europe and the
United States in an attempt to properly attribute 25 works to the artist
and bring them home, so to speak, for display; ’s-Hertogenbosch does
not have a permanent collection of art by its native son.
Hieronymus
Bosch, “The Garden of Delights” (circa 1494–1516) (detail), Museo
Nacional del Prado, Madrid (image courtesy Kino Lorber)
The team of scholars, conservators, and scientists has adopted a
“standardized approach” for its mission, using advancements in modern
technology, conservation, and art history to scrutinize the paintings.
They rigorously inspect the works to create typologies that form the
basis of a comparative analysis: Do the brushstrokes that compose “The
Garden of Earthly Delights” (c. 1503) match those observed in “The Last
Judgment” (c. 1505)? How are owls, ears, or staffs standard or
dissimilar across each of Bosch’s canvasses?
Through techniques such as infrared photography and reflectography,
X-radiography and dendrochronology, members of the BRCP are able to
carefully examine both the surface paintings and underdrawings, noting
discrepancies between layers and often across different areas of one
piece, leading some scholars to suspect the involvement of multiple
hands in the creation of a single artwork.
Touched by the Devil
immerses its audience in these processes through close-up shots of the
team as they photograph, polish, and slice the wood that frames the
masterpieces under review. In the end, the team dismisses two works
previously recognized as Bosches, while the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
in Kansas City learns that “The Temptation of Saint Anthony” (1500–10)
it holds is legitimate.
Ron
Spronk, technical art historian, with Hieronymus Bosch’s “The Garden of
Delights” (circa 1494–1516), Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (image
courtesy Kino Lorber)
At times, we follow the team members, observing their discussions
amongst each other in the archives and galleries they visit. We’re also
privy to meetings among curators and phone calls between museums’ staff.
But in a way it is van Huystee’s camera that is the most compelling
character, as it assumes the role of auxiliary team member while
simultaneously becoming a careful observer. The opening sequence
immerses the viewer immediately, as the camera zooms in on the cracks
and fissures in the surface of the paint. Some of the most thoughtful
scenes are slow pans over particular elements of a canvas, allowing the
viewer to get a sustained look at a mischievous demon or saint’s face.
Given that Bosch’s works are often highly detailed cacophonies of
figural shapes, the time to narrow in on select images and focus is
appreciated.
Johannes Wierix (?), Hieronymus Bosch (1572), engraving (image courtesy Reaktion Books) (click to enlarge)
In
Visions and Nightmares, Büttner gives
particular weight to the techniques employed by the BRCP, as he aims
to give a comprehensive overview of Bosch’s life and insight into the
artist’s motivations for his paintings, based solely on those that have
been definitively authenticated. Büttner looks to information that can
be traced back to historical record, and is clear about this from the
first chapter, stating that “although the large body of surviving
material evidence, the pictures, records, and documents, do not
determine what can or should be said about the historical context, they
do determine what cannot be said. What follows can be said.”
Mythology surrounding Bosch has incorrectly labeled him a heretic or
practitioner of witchcraft. In his introductory biography of the artist,
Büttner mines previous research to dispel theories about Bosch’s life
and work that portray interpretation as fact and look for evidence of
impious behavior in the bizarre scenes of depravity he conjured.
Büttner’s dense prose informs and educates in a manner typical of
academic texts, though the illustrations and relatively short length
keeps its verbosity from becoming intolerable, placing importance on
Bosch’s relationship to religion and his membership within the
Brotherhood of Our Lady, a confraternity comprised of clerics and the
socially connected. His artworks emerged from an environment imbued with
theology and his patrons’ commissions were variations on religious
narratives. Known for visually representing the choice humans face when
confronted with the temptation of sin, or what might await a soul in
limbo, as in “The Garden of Earthly Delights,” “Adoration of the Magi”
(c. 1485–1500), or “St. Jerome at Prayer” (c. 1495), Bosch actually
incorporates more realism than the fantastical into his scenes.
Matthijs
Ilsink, art historian, with Hieronymus Bosch’s “The Flood and Hell,”
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (image courtesy Kino Lorber)
Bosch’s innovative approach to his art spawned countless imitators
and assumptions about what it all might mean, but both van Huystee’s
film and Büttner’s book attach more importance to his life and work. The
paintings are instructive, divulging what might happen to people
consumed by sin and those who fight it. Bosch’s style set him apart from
his contemporaries precisely because of the speculative nature of the
work. Who knows for sure what happens to a soul in hell? One could only
imagine what horrors would await. But Bosch made visual this “what if?”
in such idiosyncratic ways that scholars continue to try to pinpoint, to
confirm what makes Bosch really a Bosch, a question that continues to
captivate viewers centuries after his death.
Hieronymus Bosch: Touched by the Devil by Pieter van Huystee is screening at Film Forum (209 W Houston St, West Village, Manhattan) through August 9. Hieronymus Bosch: Visions and Nightmares by Nils Büttner, out from Reaktion Books, is available on Amazon and other online booksellers.
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