The Easel

Essay: Bosch Mania

The Noordbrabants Museum, a regional museum in sensible Holland, is hosting an exhibition of the work of Hieronymus Bosch. Astonishingly, it has its doors open every night into the wee hours to cope with overwhelming public interest. Easel Contributing Editor, Morgan Meis, ponders the phenomenon of this Renaissance artist. “[T]he images in Bosch’s paintings were so unprecedented that they must come from the mind of someone who stood apart, a radical of sorts, an outsider for sure. [The paintings of Bosch’s contemporary, da Vinci], for all their innovations in form and technique, take up orthodox and well-worn subject matter in orthodox and well-worn ways. [E]ven The Mona Lisa is a more or less straightforward portrait, due respect paid to her mysterious smile.”