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Amidst the many unlucky ones who are speared, ripped open, strangled or even fried, the monster in the egg that has been shot by an arrow, steps jovially into the middle panel. He appears to be detached from his entourage. Meanwhile, his fellow monsters are painstakingly going about their core-business: carrying out the merciless delivery of the final punishment, for us sinners, in a most inventive manner.
ABOUT THE ARTWORK: THE LAST JUDGEMENT Hiëronymus Bosch warns us
against the consequences of a life of sin. The downfall of the
rebellious angels on the left panel heralds the beginning of the end.
Further, one sees the chosen few in heaven, with below them the vast
remainder who will have to undergo the most horrendous tortures on
Judgement Day. Saint Jacob of Compostella and the ‘Holy Bavo’ adorn the
closed panels.
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ABOUT THE ART PERIOD: From an artistic
point of view, the world famous brilliant forerunner of surrealism was,
in his day, unique and radically different. Hiëronymus (Jeroen for
schort) Bosch was born (ca. 1450-1516) during the transition from the
Middle Ages to the Renaissance in ‘s-Hertogenbosch, in the Duchy of
Brabant. Bosch places visionary images in a hostile world full of
mysticism, with the conviction that the human being, due to its own
stupidity and sinfulness has become prey to the devil himself. He holds
a mirror to the world with his cerebral irony and magical symbolism,
sparing no one. He aims his mocking arrows equally well at the
hypocrisy of the clergy as the extravagance of the nobility and the
immorality of the people. Hiëronymus Bosch’s style arises from the
tradition of the book illuminations (manuscript illustrations from the
Middle Ages). The caricatural representation of evil tones down its
terrifying implications, but also serves as a defiant warning with a
theological basis.
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