The Artistry of Bosch: Renaissance Naturalism, Allegory, and Imagination at the Guilford Free Library

Robert Baldwin, Associate Prof. of Art History, Connecticut College will present a talk on Dutch Renaissance painter Hieronymus Bosch. Professor Baldwin has taught Renaissance and Baroque art history at Connecticut College for 31 years.

Bosch revolutionized early Renaissance art by turning away from traditional Christian images such as Madonnas and saints. In the Garden of Earthly Delights, the Haywain, and the Seven Deadly Sins, Bosch painted secular, encyclopedic scenes of everyday life (framed with moral allegory) and fantastic scenes of sexual fantasy and hellish punishment. Although seemingly poles apart, his naturalism and fantasy were both part of a secular, Renaissance aesthetic which understood artistic seeing as both empirical and playful, as a process rooted in the study of the natural world and in the display of visual interpretation and artistic mind. In the Renaissance world of art, seeing was ultimately connected to artistic invention. Among the ironies, Bosch’s artistry allowed him to convert medieval sin and hellish punishment into visually appealing luxury objects for pleasure loving aristocrats while bringing the artist fame and fortune.

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