Research Catalog

Title

Utopia's doom : the graal as paradise of lust, the sect of the free spirit and Jheronimus Bosch's so-called Garden of delights / by Paul Vandenbroeck ; edited by Barbara Baert.

Author

Vandenbroeck, Paul

Publication

Leuven : Peeters, 2017.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Additional Authors

Baert, Barbara

Description

vii, 343 pages : illustrations (chiefly color); 26 cm.

Summary

The so-called 'Garden of delights' by Jheronimus Bosch (c. 1450-1516) remains an absolutely iconic work in European art history. The highly complex and enigmatic image has frequently been interpreted as a paradisiacal utopia, in which people indulge playfully in erotic pleasure in harmony with nature. It is a visual utopia framed before Thomas More had actually coined the word in a book whose entirely unfrivolous blueprint for society could hardly differ more from Bosch's phantasm. More traditional art historians have identified Bosch's masterpiece as a painted warning against the sins of the body, more specifically that of 'lust,' citing the image of Hell in the right wing in support. Vandenbroeck argues that these two interpretations need not preclude one another: Bosch painted a phantasmagorical false paradise that leads inexorably to ruin. He drew his inspiration from folk ideas about a semi-earthly, semi-supernatural erotic paradise or grail, in which those who entered could live in a dream-world of unbridled pleasure. But only until Judgement Day, upon which they would all wind up in Hell.

Series Statement

Art & religion ; 8

Uniform Title

Art & religion ; 8.

Subjects

• Bosch, Hieronymus, -1516 > Garden of delights
• Lust in art
• Utopias in art
• Hell in art
• Garden of delights (Bosch, Hieronymus)

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (pages 315-335) and index.

ISBN

• 9789042934689
• 9042934689

OCLC

• on1017600308
• 1017600308
• SCSB-8961909

Owning Institutions

Columbia University Libraries