WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.100 Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today we are stepping 00:00:03.100 --> 00:00:07.339 into a visual landscape that is, well, it's frankly 00:00:07.339 --> 00:00:10.400 terrifying. And absolutely mesmerizing. Exactly. 00:00:10.460 --> 00:00:13.500 And confusing in the best possible way. Yeah. 00:00:13.580 --> 00:00:16.179 We're looking at the work of a man who has been 00:00:16.179 --> 00:00:20.260 called the inventor of monsters and chimeras. 00:00:20.719 --> 00:00:23.460 That's a quote from Felipe de Guevara, a Spaniard, 00:00:23.559 --> 00:00:27.179 writing all the way back in 1560. 1560. That's 00:00:27.179 --> 00:00:29.059 incredible. And he called him that, the inventor 00:00:29.059 --> 00:00:32.820 of monsters. And, you know, nearly 500 years 00:00:32.820 --> 00:00:35.880 later, that description still holds up perfectly. 00:00:36.039 --> 00:00:38.679 If anything, it's even more relevant. It really, 00:00:38.780 --> 00:00:40.520 really does. Because when you stand in front 00:00:40.520 --> 00:00:42.320 of one of his paintings or, you know, even when 00:00:42.320 --> 00:00:44.240 you just pull up a high res image on your screen, 00:00:44.420 --> 00:00:46.659 you are seeing things that just shouldn't exist. 00:00:46.920 --> 00:00:48.679 Things that feel like they're from another dimension. 00:00:48.960 --> 00:00:51.039 Yes. You're seeing these. oversized fruits that 00:00:51.039 --> 00:00:52.939 look like they're about to burst. You see people 00:00:52.939 --> 00:00:55.219 trapped inside translucent bubbles like they're 00:00:55.219 --> 00:00:57.619 some kind of, I don't know, specimens. And those 00:00:57.619 --> 00:01:00.439 weird hybrid stone formations that look almost 00:01:00.439 --> 00:01:03.020 like alien architecture. And the hellscapes. 00:01:03.060 --> 00:01:05.299 The hellscapes look like they were ripped right 00:01:05.299 --> 00:01:08.599 out of a modern surrealist horror movie. But 00:01:08.599 --> 00:01:10.480 here's the thing, and this is the kicker that 00:01:10.480 --> 00:01:12.840 always stops me in my tracks. The dates. These 00:01:12.840 --> 00:01:16.060 were painted in the late 1400s. Right. Context 00:01:16.060 --> 00:01:18.379 is absolutely everything here. I mean, we are 00:01:18.379 --> 00:01:20.439 talking about the transition from the late Middle 00:01:20.439 --> 00:01:23.879 Ages into the Renaissance. It's a time when art 00:01:23.879 --> 00:01:27.120 was, for the most part, very orderly, very devotional. 00:01:27.260 --> 00:01:29.519 You had your saints, the Virgin Mary. Exactly. 00:01:29.739 --> 00:01:31.920 Strict hierarchies in the paintings. And then 00:01:31.920 --> 00:01:34.060 right in the middle of all of that, you get this 00:01:34.060 --> 00:01:37.939 explosion of what was described at the time as 00:01:37.939 --> 00:01:41.319 wondrous and strange fantasies. It's like a glitch 00:01:41.319 --> 00:01:43.519 in the matrix of art history. That's a perfect 00:01:43.519 --> 00:01:45.900 way to put it. So the protagonist of today's 00:01:45.900 --> 00:01:49.459 deep dive, the man behind this glitch, is Hieronymus 00:01:49.459 --> 00:01:52.459 Van Aken. But the world knows him much, much 00:01:52.459 --> 00:01:55.340 better as Hieronymus Bosch. The one and only. 00:01:55.540 --> 00:01:58.480 And our mission today is, I think, pretty specific. 00:01:58.560 --> 00:02:01.560 We want to try and peel back the many layers 00:02:01.560 --> 00:02:03.340 of myth that surround this guy. Because there 00:02:03.340 --> 00:02:06.000 are a lot of them. A lot of them. Let's be real. 00:02:06.099 --> 00:02:09.099 When you see a painting with a bird -headed monster 00:02:09.099 --> 00:02:11.280 eating a human while it's sitting on a high chair 00:02:11.280 --> 00:02:14.550 that's also a toilet. Your first thought is probably. 00:02:14.889 --> 00:02:18.229 What was this guy on? Exactly. It's a natural 00:02:18.229 --> 00:02:20.650 reaction. It is. But we're not just looking at 00:02:20.650 --> 00:02:22.949 the weird monsters today. We are trying to understand 00:02:22.949 --> 00:02:26.909 the man who sort of paradoxically became this 00:02:26.909 --> 00:02:30.490 voice of reason through his depiction of madness. 00:02:30.770 --> 00:02:33.810 We want to know what makes him tick. And that 00:02:33.810 --> 00:02:36.509 really is the core tension, isn't it? The debate 00:02:36.509 --> 00:02:39.610 has been raging for centuries. Was he a heretic? 00:02:39.689 --> 00:02:42.509 Was he, you know, on some kind of hallucinogen? 00:02:42.650 --> 00:02:44.930 Was he a member of a secret sex cult? Was he 00:02:44.930 --> 00:02:47.409 the opposite? Was he actually a deeply orthodox 00:02:47.409 --> 00:02:50.669 moralist who was just using these images to scare 00:02:50.669 --> 00:02:52.430 people into being good? Scaring them straight, 00:02:52.590 --> 00:02:54.710 essentially. Right. And then on top of all that, 00:02:54.830 --> 00:02:56.849 we have this whole other layer, this kind of 00:02:56.849 --> 00:02:58.530 detective story we have to get through, right? 00:02:58.629 --> 00:03:00.789 Oh, yeah. Because we have to ask the fundamental 00:03:00.789 --> 00:03:04.139 question. How do we even know which paintings 00:03:04.139 --> 00:03:06.680 are actually his? And that's not as simple as 00:03:06.680 --> 00:03:09.099 just checking for a signature. It turns out that's 00:03:09.099 --> 00:03:12.259 a huge, huge debate in the art world, and it's 00:03:12.259 --> 00:03:14.360 actually heating up right now. So what are we 00:03:14.360 --> 00:03:16.840 working with today? What are our sources? Okay, 00:03:16.900 --> 00:03:18.419 so we're pulling from a few different places. 00:03:18.539 --> 00:03:20.780 We've got historical records from his hometown, 00:03:21.099 --> 00:03:24.419 his Hertogenbosch. We have art history analysis 00:03:24.419 --> 00:03:28.080 of his most famous triptychs, specifically The 00:03:28.080 --> 00:03:30.280 Garden of Earthly Delights and The Temptation 00:03:30.280 --> 00:03:32.800 of St. Anthony. The big ones. The heavy hitters. 00:03:32.960 --> 00:03:35.419 And we're also going to look at some really cutting 00:03:35.419 --> 00:03:37.620 -edge forensic data from something called the 00:03:37.620 --> 00:03:40.319 Bosch Research and Conservation Project, or the 00:03:40.319 --> 00:03:43.560 BRCP for short. Science meets art history. I 00:03:43.560 --> 00:03:45.580 love it. Okay, let's unpack this. Let's start 00:03:45.580 --> 00:03:47.460 with the man himself. You mentioned his name 00:03:47.460 --> 00:03:50.740 was Hieronymus van Aken. So where does Bosch 00:03:50.740 --> 00:03:52.800 come from? Is that a nickname, a stage name? 00:03:52.979 --> 00:03:55.840 It is essentially a branding decision, which 00:03:55.840 --> 00:03:57.620 is a very modern way to think about it for an 00:03:57.620 --> 00:03:59.819 artist in the 15th century. A brand, really? 00:04:00.000 --> 00:04:03.360 Totally. So he was born Hieronymus von Aitken, 00:04:03.520 --> 00:04:06.960 probably around 1450. The name Van Aken tells 00:04:06.960 --> 00:04:09.860 us his family's roots were likely in the city 00:04:09.860 --> 00:04:13.219 of Aken, or maybe Namaken, but he spent his entire 00:04:13.219 --> 00:04:17.180 life in the town of Hertogenbosch. Hertogenbosch. 00:04:17.220 --> 00:04:20.079 That is a mouthful for anyone not from the Netherlands. 00:04:20.339 --> 00:04:22.680 I'm glad we're sticking with Bosch. It's a bit 00:04:22.680 --> 00:04:24.839 of a tongue twister for sure. It translates to 00:04:24.839 --> 00:04:28.160 the Duke's Forest. But locally, people just called 00:04:28.160 --> 00:04:30.800 it Denbos, which just means the forest. Okay, 00:04:30.860 --> 00:04:33.740 that's easier. Much easier. So when Hieronymus 00:04:33.740 --> 00:04:36.199 starts gaining some fame, he needs a way to distinguish 00:04:36.199 --> 00:04:39.259 himself. He knew his market wasn't just local. 00:04:39.399 --> 00:04:41.899 He was ambitious. He wanted to sell to international 00:04:41.899 --> 00:04:45.160 buyers, to the Spanish court, to wealthy collectors 00:04:45.160 --> 00:04:48.399 all across Europe. So Van Aken from this small 00:04:48.399 --> 00:04:50.240 town didn't really tell them anything, but... 00:04:50.459 --> 00:04:52.980 Bosch. But Bosch told them exactly where to find 00:04:52.980 --> 00:04:55.420 him. He adopted the name of his city. He became 00:04:55.420 --> 00:04:57.959 the artist from Den Bosch, Hieronymus Bosch. 00:04:58.000 --> 00:05:00.220 That is actually really smart. It's like a rapper 00:05:00.220 --> 00:05:02.000 taking the name of their neighborhood to represent 00:05:02.000 --> 00:05:04.180 where they're from. He's putting his city on 00:05:04.180 --> 00:05:07.620 the map literally and figuratively. He was putting 00:05:07.620 --> 00:05:10.079 his stamp on it. And it's really important for 00:05:10.079 --> 00:05:12.100 context to remember he wasn't the only artist 00:05:12.100 --> 00:05:14.860 in his family. We often have this idea of these 00:05:14.860 --> 00:05:17.660 geniuses as singular anomalies who just appear 00:05:17.660 --> 00:05:20.139 out of nowhere. The lone genius myth. Exactly. 00:05:20.480 --> 00:05:23.100 But Bosch had, for lack of a better term, artistic 00:05:23.100 --> 00:05:26.220 DNA. So it wasn't just a hobby for him. Not at 00:05:26.220 --> 00:05:28.420 all. It was the family business. His grandfather, 00:05:28.759 --> 00:05:32.170 Jan van Aken, was a painter. Jan had five sons, 00:05:32.290 --> 00:05:35.470 and four of them also became painters. Hieronymus' 00:05:35.589 --> 00:05:38.410 own father, Anthonius, was an artistic advisor. 00:05:38.930 --> 00:05:41.629 So he grows up in a house that just smells like 00:05:41.629 --> 00:05:44.350 turpentine and linseed oil. It's like growing 00:05:44.350 --> 00:05:47.110 up in a family of carpenters or bakers. You don't 00:05:47.110 --> 00:05:49.329 just choose it, you're sort of born into it. 00:05:49.629 --> 00:05:51.470 That is a great way to view it. It really was 00:05:51.470 --> 00:05:53.850 a workshop dynamic. We assume Bosch learned the 00:05:53.850 --> 00:05:56.009 trade from his father or his uncles. He would 00:05:56.009 --> 00:05:57.750 have started by, you know, grinding pigments, 00:05:57.850 --> 00:05:59.870 prepping the oak panels, learning the basics 00:05:59.870 --> 00:06:01.889 of drawing. So he learned the fundamentals. He 00:06:01.889 --> 00:06:05.269 had to. But the real tragedy, from an art historian's 00:06:05.269 --> 00:06:07.730 perspective, is that none of their other works 00:06:07.730 --> 00:06:09.930 have survived. None of them. Not a single painting 00:06:09.930 --> 00:06:13.189 from his father or grandfather. Zero. Nothing. 00:06:13.410 --> 00:06:15.889 So we can't compare Hieronymus to his dad and 00:06:15.889 --> 00:06:17.910 say, ah, that's where he got his style from. 00:06:18.009 --> 00:06:19.750 We don't know if his father painted monsters 00:06:19.750 --> 00:06:22.370 or if his uncles painted surreal landscapes. 00:06:22.790 --> 00:06:26.089 He just appears in the historical record in 1474, 00:06:26.290 --> 00:06:30.189 fully formed as an artist. Wow. That is so frustrating. 00:06:30.310 --> 00:06:32.329 It's like having the final chapter of a book 00:06:32.329 --> 00:06:34.250 but missing the entire prologue. Well, it leaves 00:06:34.250 --> 00:06:37.500 a huge gap. Okay, so he's a local boy from a 00:06:37.500 --> 00:06:40.379 family of painters. But something must have happened 00:06:40.379 --> 00:06:43.000 to give him such a dark vision of the world. 00:06:43.720 --> 00:06:45.959 You don't just wake up one day and decide to 00:06:45.959 --> 00:06:48.100 paint a demon playing a flute out of a human 00:06:48.100 --> 00:06:50.740 nose without some kind of inspiration. I read 00:06:50.740 --> 00:06:52.399 about a specific event in his childhood that 00:06:52.399 --> 00:06:54.160 sounds absolutely traumatic. You're thinking 00:06:54.160 --> 00:06:58.269 of a fire. The Great Fire of 1463. Yes. In 1463, 00:06:58.389 --> 00:07:00.910 a truly catastrophic fire just swept through 00:07:00.910 --> 00:07:03.110 Ishertip and Bosch, and Hieronymus would have 00:07:03.110 --> 00:07:06.709 been roughly 13 years old. 13. Wow. That is a 00:07:06.709 --> 00:07:08.930 very impressionable age. Extremely. The records 00:07:08.930 --> 00:07:11.269 from the time say 4 ,000 houses were destroyed. 00:07:11.589 --> 00:07:15.449 4 ,000 houses. In a medieval town, that isn't 00:07:15.449 --> 00:07:17.720 just a neighborhood fire. That is practically 00:07:17.720 --> 00:07:19.959 the whole world burning down around you. It was 00:07:19.959 --> 00:07:22.319 devastating. You have to imagine the density 00:07:22.319 --> 00:07:24.860 of a medieval town, the narrow streets, all the 00:07:24.860 --> 00:07:27.800 wooden structures, the thatched roofs. Once a 00:07:27.800 --> 00:07:30.209 fire like that gets going, there's just... There's 00:07:30.209 --> 00:07:32.709 no stopping it. It consumes everything. And you 00:07:32.709 --> 00:07:34.769 can see it in the work, can't you? Oh, absolutely. 00:07:34.910 --> 00:07:37.209 If you look at Bosch's paintings later in life, 00:07:37.329 --> 00:07:39.970 specifically his depictions of hell, you see 00:07:39.970 --> 00:07:42.170 these backgrounds. They're almost always filled 00:07:42.170 --> 00:07:44.290 with burning cities, with exploding buildings, 00:07:44.350 --> 00:07:48.329 and that distinct, terrifying orange glow against 00:07:48.329 --> 00:07:51.579 a pitch black sky. So it's not a metaphorical 00:07:51.579 --> 00:07:53.600 fire in his paintings. I don't think so. I mean, 00:07:53.620 --> 00:07:56.360 I think it's memory. It's very, very likely that 00:07:56.360 --> 00:07:59.540 the teenage trauma of watching his hometown turn 00:07:59.540 --> 00:08:02.600 into a complete inferno just. Right. It stayed 00:08:02.600 --> 00:08:05.279 with him forever. He saw the panic. He saw people 00:08:05.279 --> 00:08:08.120 losing everything. He saw what he probably interpreted 00:08:08.120 --> 00:08:10.399 as the wrath of God. That makes so much sense. 00:08:10.600 --> 00:08:13.100 He isn't just imagining hell. He saw a version 00:08:13.100 --> 00:08:14.759 of it. He walked through the ashes. He knew what 00:08:14.759 --> 00:08:17.420 it looked like. But despite that trauma, and 00:08:17.420 --> 00:08:19.399 despite the incredible weirdness of his art, 00:08:19.560 --> 00:08:22.000 he wasn't a starving artist living on the fringe, 00:08:22.160 --> 00:08:24.639 was he? Because that's the other myth, that he 00:08:24.639 --> 00:08:27.399 must have been this tortured, isolated soul living 00:08:27.399 --> 00:08:30.420 in a garret somewhere. Not even close. And this 00:08:30.420 --> 00:08:32.919 is where that mad heretic theory really starts 00:08:32.919 --> 00:08:34.860 to crumble a bit. When you look at the facts 00:08:34.860 --> 00:08:37.879 of his life, he was actually quite well -to -do. 00:08:37.879 --> 00:08:41.100 He was a man of significant status. How so? Well, 00:08:41.179 --> 00:08:45.080 sometime between 1479 and 1481, he married a 00:08:45.080 --> 00:08:48.960 woman named Allade Goyartz Vandenmeerven. Allade 00:08:48.960 --> 00:08:53.340 Goyartz Vandenmeerven. That... That sounds like 00:08:53.340 --> 00:08:54.940 an expensive name. That sounds like old money. 00:08:55.080 --> 00:08:57.240 It was. She was a few years older than him, and 00:08:57.240 --> 00:08:59.379 she came from a very wealthy family. She had 00:08:59.379 --> 00:09:01.740 inherited a house and a lot of land in a nearby 00:09:01.740 --> 00:09:04.840 town called Orrshut. This marriage gave Bosch 00:09:04.840 --> 00:09:07.620 significant financial stability. And that changes 00:09:07.620 --> 00:09:09.580 the dynamic completely, doesn't it? It does. 00:09:09.700 --> 00:09:11.799 It means he didn't have to paint just to survive. 00:09:12.000 --> 00:09:14.340 He didn't have to just churn out standard portraits 00:09:14.340 --> 00:09:16.340 of local merchants to put food on the table. 00:09:16.460 --> 00:09:18.840 He had the freedom, the financial freedom, to 00:09:18.840 --> 00:09:21.139 paint what he wanted to paint. So the monsters 00:09:21.139 --> 00:09:23.419 were a choice. They weren't a desperate attempt 00:09:23.419 --> 00:09:26.279 to get attention. A very deliberate choice. And 00:09:26.279 --> 00:09:28.440 he was also part of a pretty exclusive club, 00:09:28.620 --> 00:09:30.700 right? The Brotherhood of Our Lady. Exactly. 00:09:30.720 --> 00:09:34.039 This was a highly respected devotional confraternity. 00:09:34.240 --> 00:09:36.200 And for anyone listening who might not know, 00:09:36.320 --> 00:09:40.200 a confraternity is basically a lay religious 00:09:40.200 --> 00:09:43.440 organization. Kind of like a localized charitable 00:09:43.440 --> 00:09:46.000 club, but with a religious focus. That's a good 00:09:46.000 --> 00:09:48.320 way to put it. But this wasn't just any club. 00:09:48.789 --> 00:09:50.590 They were dedicated to the veneration of the 00:09:50.590 --> 00:09:53.850 Virgin Mary. They had about 40 sworn members 00:09:53.850 --> 00:09:56.929 who were the most influential citizens, the elite 00:09:56.929 --> 00:09:58.889 of the town, the movers and shakers. And then 00:09:58.889 --> 00:10:01.669 they had a wider membership. Right, about 7 ,000 00:10:01.669 --> 00:10:05.029 outer members from all across Europe. But Bosch 00:10:05.029 --> 00:10:07.769 became a sworn member, one of the elite 40, in 00:10:07.769 --> 00:10:11.409 1486 or 1487. So he is rubbing shoulders with 00:10:11.409 --> 00:10:13.669 the powerful. He's dining with the mayor, the 00:10:13.669 --> 00:10:16.029 high -ranking clergy, the richest merchants in 00:10:16.029 --> 00:10:18.769 town. Exactly. His father had been an artistic 00:10:18.769 --> 00:10:20.730 advisor to the Brotherhood, which was a good 00:10:20.730 --> 00:10:23.990 position, but Hieronymus became a full -sworn 00:10:23.990 --> 00:10:26.570 member. He was deeply embedded in the religious 00:10:26.570 --> 00:10:30.169 establishment of his city. Which completely contradicts 00:10:30.169 --> 00:10:32.129 the idea that he was some kind of outsider or 00:10:32.129 --> 00:10:34.509 cultist. It makes it almost impossible to believe 00:10:34.509 --> 00:10:36.870 he was a pillar of the community. Which makes 00:10:36.870 --> 00:10:39.460 the paintings even more fascinating. It's like 00:10:39.460 --> 00:10:42.279 finding out your very respectable banker neighbor, 00:10:42.519 --> 00:10:44.279 the one who heads the homeowners association, 00:10:44.700 --> 00:10:47.960 writes the most twisted psychedelic horror novels 00:10:47.960 --> 00:10:50.500 on the weekends. That is a perfect analogy. He 00:10:50.500 --> 00:10:53.159 lived a very respectable, orderly public life 00:10:53.159 --> 00:10:56.299 while painting the most disreputable, chaotic 00:10:56.299 --> 00:10:58.639 things imaginable. Okay, let's talk about how 00:10:58.639 --> 00:11:00.600 he actually painted. Because you mentioned earlier 00:11:00.600 --> 00:11:03.600 that art at this time, this early Netherlandish 00:11:03.600 --> 00:11:06.049 style, was usually very orderly. I'm thinking 00:11:06.049 --> 00:11:08.629 of Jan van Eyck. Very smooth, very polished, 00:11:08.809 --> 00:11:11.620 almost like glass. Right. The gold standard of 00:11:11.620 --> 00:11:14.360 the time, set by masters like Van Eyck, was to 00:11:14.360 --> 00:11:17.159 create an illusion of absolute perfection. They 00:11:17.159 --> 00:11:20.240 used multiple, very thin, transparent glazes 00:11:20.240 --> 00:11:22.759 of oil paint. Layer after layer. Layer after 00:11:22.759 --> 00:11:25.799 layer. It was a painstaking process. And they 00:11:25.799 --> 00:11:28.200 would build them up to create a surface so smooth 00:11:28.200 --> 00:11:30.419 you couldn't see any brush strokes. The idea 00:11:30.419 --> 00:11:32.700 was to make the painting look like a divine creation, 00:11:33.019 --> 00:11:35.779 as if it just appeared untouched by human hands. 00:11:35.919 --> 00:11:38.039 Like it was breezed onto the panel. Exactly. 00:11:38.100 --> 00:11:40.720 It was all about removing the art. from the image 00:11:40.720 --> 00:11:44.080 to focus the viewer entirely on the divine subject. 00:11:44.279 --> 00:11:48.759 And Bosch. Well, he did not do that. No. He actively 00:11:48.759 --> 00:11:50.960 rebelled against that technical perfectionism. 00:11:51.240 --> 00:11:54.580 He painted in what art historians call a sketchy 00:11:54.580 --> 00:11:57.399 manner. He used impasto, which means the paint 00:11:57.399 --> 00:11:59.659 has texture. It's physically raised on the surface. 00:11:59.759 --> 00:12:01.440 You can see the brushwork. You can see the direction 00:12:01.440 --> 00:12:03.940 of his hand. So why do you think he did that? 00:12:04.019 --> 00:12:06.740 Was he just impatient or was it a deliberate 00:12:06.740 --> 00:12:09.259 artistic choice? I don't think for a second it 00:12:09.259 --> 00:12:11.679 was impatience. I think it suggests a desire 00:12:11.679 --> 00:12:15.899 to be direct. He was prioritizing the idea, the 00:12:15.899 --> 00:12:18.629 content, the message over. the illusion of reality. 00:12:19.009 --> 00:12:21.029 It gives it a different kind of energy. It does. 00:12:21.129 --> 00:12:23.509 It gives his work a sense of urgency. When you 00:12:23.509 --> 00:12:26.629 look at a Bosch, you feel the energy of the artist's 00:12:26.629 --> 00:12:29.110 hand. It was a stylistic departure that really 00:12:29.110 --> 00:12:31.590 set him apart from all his contemporaries. It 00:12:31.590 --> 00:12:33.850 made his work feel more alive, more immediate, 00:12:33.929 --> 00:12:36.269 and maybe more human. It feels more modern in 00:12:36.269 --> 00:12:38.149 a way, like he's saying, I have something to 00:12:38.149 --> 00:12:39.830 tell you, and I need to get it down on this panel 00:12:39.830 --> 00:12:42.759 fast before the vision fades. That's it. What 00:12:42.759 --> 00:12:45.320 about his tools? Was he using some special weird 00:12:45.320 --> 00:12:48.179 kind of paint to get those effects or secret 00:12:48.179 --> 00:12:50.179 ingredients? You know, it's funny. His toolbox 00:12:50.179 --> 00:12:52.720 was surprisingly standard. He painted with oil 00:12:52.720 --> 00:12:55.000 on oak panels, which was typical for the region. 00:12:55.360 --> 00:12:58.279 And his palette, the range of colors he used, 00:12:58.320 --> 00:13:01.080 was actually quite limited. Really? Because when 00:13:01.080 --> 00:13:03.659 I look at a print of the Garden of Orisley Delights, 00:13:03.659 --> 00:13:06.500 my brain just explodes with color. I would have 00:13:06.500 --> 00:13:08.639 assumed he had access to every pigment available 00:13:08.639 --> 00:13:11.710 at the time. The paintings are incredibly vivid, 00:13:11.809 --> 00:13:14.610 but he achieved that vividness with a few key 00:13:14.610 --> 00:13:18.149 pigments. He was very economical. For his blues, 00:13:18.230 --> 00:13:21.090 those beautiful hazy skies and distant landscapes 00:13:21.090 --> 00:13:23.809 that fade into the horizon, he used azurite. 00:13:23.909 --> 00:13:26.450 For the foliage and the green tones, he used 00:13:26.450 --> 00:13:29.110 malachite and verdigris, which are copper -based 00:13:29.110 --> 00:13:31.889 pigments. And they can be a bit unstable, which 00:13:31.889 --> 00:13:33.769 is why some of his greens have darkened over 00:13:33.769 --> 00:13:35.830 time. And what about the people? All those little 00:13:35.830 --> 00:13:38.710 nude figures? For the figures, he mostly used 00:13:38.710 --> 00:13:41.990 lead. Tintin yellow, various ochres, and red 00:13:41.990 --> 00:13:44.389 lake, which is a carmine pigment made from insects. 00:13:44.750 --> 00:13:47.750 So pretty standard kit. Very standard. And it's 00:13:47.750 --> 00:13:50.149 amazing that he created such vivid nightmares 00:13:50.149 --> 00:13:52.769 with that limited palette. It's like a chef making 00:13:52.769 --> 00:13:55.610 a five -course meal with just salt, pepper, and 00:13:55.610 --> 00:13:57.990 flour. It really highlights his genius, doesn't 00:13:57.990 --> 00:14:01.110 it? He wasn't relying on expensive, rare pigments 00:14:01.110 --> 00:14:03.809 like lapis lazuli to impress the buyer, which 00:14:03.809 --> 00:14:05.970 was a common trick at the time to show off the 00:14:05.970 --> 00:14:08.450 patron's wealth. He wasn't. He was relying entirely 00:14:08.450 --> 00:14:11.590 on his imagination. The value was in the vision, 00:14:11.610 --> 00:14:13.909 not just the raw materials. Okay, let's get into 00:14:13.909 --> 00:14:16.269 that imagination. We have to talk about the masterpieces. 00:14:16.610 --> 00:14:19.230 We can't do a deep dive on Bosch without walking 00:14:19.230 --> 00:14:21.590 through the Garden of Earthly Delights. I mean, 00:14:21.649 --> 00:14:23.730 it's the piece everyone knows. It's a pop culture 00:14:23.730 --> 00:14:26.990 icon. It's the most famous for a reason. It captures 00:14:26.990 --> 00:14:29.690 everything we are talking about. It's a triptych. 00:14:30.190 --> 00:14:32.789 which means it has three panels hinged together. 00:14:33.090 --> 00:14:35.730 And the outer panels, when they're closed, show 00:14:35.730 --> 00:14:39.269 the world during creation. It's a sphere floating 00:14:39.269 --> 00:14:42.070 in darkness, painted in grisaille. Grisaille, 00:14:42.169 --> 00:14:44.750 meaning painting in shades of gray to mimic stone 00:14:44.750 --> 00:14:47.690 or sculpture. Correct. So it starts very somber. 00:14:47.690 --> 00:14:50.169 It's the world before humanity, before cinch, 00:14:50.169 --> 00:14:53.669 or before all the color and chaos. But when you 00:14:53.669 --> 00:14:56.190 open it... It's sensory overload. Complete and 00:14:56.190 --> 00:14:58.409 total overload. It's meant to bracket the entire 00:14:58.409 --> 00:15:01.309 human experience. So on the far left panel, you 00:15:01.309 --> 00:15:04.110 have the Garden of Eden. You see God presenting 00:15:04.110 --> 00:15:07.450 Eve to Adam. And at first glance, it seems peaceful. 00:15:07.669 --> 00:15:09.389 But there's a detail here that's kind of unusual, 00:15:09.509 --> 00:15:12.769 right? God looks young. Yes, this was very innovative 00:15:12.769 --> 00:15:15.450 for the time. God is depicted with a youthful 00:15:15.450 --> 00:15:18.059 appearance. He's not the old patriarchal figure 00:15:18.059 --> 00:15:20.759 with a flowing white beard. He looks almost like 00:15:20.759 --> 00:15:23.120 Christ. And even here in Paradise, things are 00:15:23.120 --> 00:15:25.500 already getting weird. The landscape is populated 00:15:25.500 --> 00:15:28.600 by exotic animals, giraffes, elephants, which 00:15:28.600 --> 00:15:31.019 Bosch probably saw in drawings from travelers. 00:15:31.259 --> 00:15:35.299 But then you also have these strange, semi -organic, 00:15:35.299 --> 00:15:39.379 hut -like shapes. It's Paradise, but it's already 00:15:39.379 --> 00:15:42.039 alien. It's not your Sunday school Eden. No. 00:15:42.059 --> 00:15:44.919 And then your eye moves to the center panel. 00:15:45.399 --> 00:15:48.919 The main event. The garden itself. This is the 00:15:48.919 --> 00:15:50.799 part everyone reproduces. This is the poster 00:15:50.799 --> 00:15:53.200 on the college dorm room wall. It's a massive 00:15:53.200 --> 00:15:56.000 panorama of what looks like innocent, self -absorbed 00:15:56.000 --> 00:15:58.259 joy. You have hundreds of nude figures. There's 00:15:58.259 --> 00:16:00.799 no shame yet. They're eating oversized fruit, 00:16:00.879 --> 00:16:02.720 strawberries, cherries, blackberries. They're 00:16:02.720 --> 00:16:04.539 riding on animals. They're trapped in bubbles. 00:16:04.820 --> 00:16:06.559 It looks like a party. It looks like a festival. 00:16:07.340 --> 00:16:09.990 But. Is it a good party? That is the eternal 00:16:09.990 --> 00:16:12.409 question, isn't it? Is this a celebration of 00:16:12.409 --> 00:16:15.129 a utopia where sin doesn't exist? Is it a what 00:16:15.129 --> 00:16:17.169 -if scenario of a world without the fall of man? 00:16:17.370 --> 00:16:20.070 Or is it a stern warning against the excesses 00:16:20.070 --> 00:16:22.409 of lust and gluttony? The fruit is so prominent. 00:16:22.490 --> 00:16:24.690 It's gigantic. It's bigger than the people in 00:16:24.690 --> 00:16:26.899 some cases. It is. And the people are engaging 00:16:26.899 --> 00:16:29.679 with it so intimately. And notice the hybrid 00:16:29.679 --> 00:16:31.440 stone formations in the background. They look 00:16:31.440 --> 00:16:34.659 blue and pink, almost like candy. But they're 00:16:34.659 --> 00:16:37.120 also sharp and menacing. That ambiguity seems 00:16:37.120 --> 00:16:39.940 to be the entire point. But then your eye can't 00:16:39.940 --> 00:16:42.059 help but drift over to the right panel. And that's 00:16:42.059 --> 00:16:44.700 where the party ends. The hell panel. And this 00:16:44.700 --> 00:16:46.940 is where it gets really interesting for me. Because 00:16:46.940 --> 00:16:49.870 when I think of hell, I think of fire. Dante's 00:16:49.870 --> 00:16:53.230 Inferno, Burning Lakes, Brimstone. And sure, 00:16:53.289 --> 00:16:55.509 there is fire in the background. The exploding 00:16:55.509 --> 00:16:57.649 city we talked about earlier, his childhood memory. 00:16:57.830 --> 00:17:01.450 Exactly. But the foreground, it's cold. That 00:17:01.450 --> 00:17:03.970 is such a crucial distinction. Bosch's Hell features 00:17:03.970 --> 00:17:06.710 frozen waterways. You see figures skating on 00:17:06.710 --> 00:17:09.210 thin ice or being submerged in frigid water. 00:17:09.410 --> 00:17:12.369 The color palette shifts to cold blues and grays, 00:17:12.369 --> 00:17:14.750 punctuated by that hellish fire in the back. 00:17:14.950 --> 00:17:17.740 That's almost scarier, the coldness of it. It 00:17:17.740 --> 00:17:20.119 implies a total absence of warmth, an absence 00:17:20.119 --> 00:17:23.539 of God, an absence of life. It is. And the whole 00:17:23.539 --> 00:17:25.920 tone shifts completely from the center panel. 00:17:26.440 --> 00:17:29.420 In the center, the nudity seems playful, maybe 00:17:29.420 --> 00:17:32.140 even innocent. But in the hell panel, the nakedness 00:17:32.140 --> 00:17:34.400 becomes shameful. The figures look vulnerable, 00:17:34.660 --> 00:17:37.700 exposed, tortured. It's a world where humanity 00:17:37.700 --> 00:17:40.160 has succumbed to every possible temptation and 00:17:40.160 --> 00:17:42.940 is now paying the eternal price. The party is 00:17:42.940 --> 00:17:45.549 over. and the hangover is eternal. I couldn't 00:17:45.549 --> 00:17:47.930 say it better. Speaking of temptation, that leads 00:17:47.930 --> 00:17:49.950 us perfectly to the other major work we need 00:17:49.950 --> 00:17:52.529 to discuss, the triptych of the temptation of 00:17:52.529 --> 00:17:54.849 St. Anthony. Right, this is from around 1501. 00:17:54.910 --> 00:17:57.009 The theme here is the struggle against evil, 00:17:57.170 --> 00:17:58.990 which seems to have been a core obsession for 00:17:58.990 --> 00:18:01.890 Bosch. St. Anthony was a hermit saint who went 00:18:01.890 --> 00:18:04.089 into the desert to pray, and the legend says 00:18:04.089 --> 00:18:06.690 he was tormented relentlessly by demons. And 00:18:06.690 --> 00:18:08.930 Bosch's demons are not your standard guys with 00:18:08.930 --> 00:18:11.809 pitchforks and pointy tails. They are. They're 00:18:11.809 --> 00:18:14.859 psychological. They're weirdly specific and creative. 00:18:15.099 --> 00:18:17.700 He paints the psychological chaos of temptation. 00:18:18.119 --> 00:18:20.900 So you have the classic temptation by seductive 00:18:20.900 --> 00:18:23.319 women, of course, but you also have these physically 00:18:23.319 --> 00:18:26.079 harrowing scenes. There is a famous composition 00:18:26.079 --> 00:18:29.460 in this triptych where St. Anthony is being ambushed 00:18:29.460 --> 00:18:32.589 in midair by a swarm of devils. In midair. Like 00:18:32.589 --> 00:18:34.730 a dogfight. Yes, he's being literally lifted 00:18:34.730 --> 00:18:38.069 up and torn apart by these flying monstrosities. 00:18:38.289 --> 00:18:40.710 It's a composition that was actually also used 00:18:40.710 --> 00:18:44.069 by the German artist Martin Schongauer. And allegedly, 00:18:44.269 --> 00:18:47.150 a young Michelangelo copied it. It shows that 00:18:47.150 --> 00:18:49.690 Bosch was tapping into a shared visual language 00:18:49.690 --> 00:18:52.369 of fear, but just taking it to a whole new level. 00:18:52.509 --> 00:18:54.089 So it's not just a mental battle, sitting in 00:18:54.089 --> 00:18:57.109 a cave being whispered at by demons. It's a full 00:18:57.109 --> 00:18:58.829 -on physical assault. And he's being attacked 00:18:58.829 --> 00:19:01.710 on the ground as well, from all sides. It represents... 00:19:01.740 --> 00:19:04.640 the total siege of the human soul the idea that 00:19:04.640 --> 00:19:07.259 evil is everywhere constantly trying to break 00:19:07.259 --> 00:19:09.920 you down so we look at these images the frozen 00:19:09.920 --> 00:19:13.819 hell the air ambush the giant strawberries and 00:19:13.819 --> 00:19:15.680 we have to ask the big question what does it 00:19:15.680 --> 00:19:17.720 all mean and this is where it's really interesting 00:19:17.720 --> 00:19:20.539 you mentioned earlier the heretic theory let's 00:19:20.539 --> 00:19:22.440 maybe debunk that first because it's a popular 00:19:22.440 --> 00:19:25.079 one Right. It's a very seductive theory, especially 00:19:25.079 --> 00:19:28.339 for a modern audience. In the 20th century, particularly 00:19:28.339 --> 00:19:31.559 around the 1960s, people really wanted Bosch 00:19:31.559 --> 00:19:34.759 to be a counterculture hero. The era of psychedelics. 00:19:34.779 --> 00:19:37.220 Exactly. They looked at the mushrooms and the 00:19:37.220 --> 00:19:38.960 bizarre creatures and thought, this guy must 00:19:38.960 --> 00:19:41.680 have been on something. Or they theorized that 00:19:41.680 --> 00:19:44.140 he was a secret member of a heretical sect, like 00:19:44.140 --> 00:19:47.160 the Adamites or the Cathars or the Brethren of 00:19:47.160 --> 00:19:49.779 the Free Spirit. And what did they believe? These 00:19:49.779 --> 00:19:52.670 were groups that... in various ways, believed 00:19:52.670 --> 00:19:55.410 in things like free love or different non -church 00:19:55.410 --> 00:19:58.670 sanctioned paths to salvation. They were outside 00:19:58.670 --> 00:20:01.630 the mainstream. So it fits the vibe of the 1960s 00:20:01.630 --> 00:20:04.470 perfectly. Bosch was the original hippie. He 00:20:04.470 --> 00:20:07.519 was raging against the machine. Exactly. And 00:20:07.519 --> 00:20:09.839 other people suggested he used obscure hermetic 00:20:09.839 --> 00:20:12.819 practices or alchemy, or that the art was just 00:20:12.819 --> 00:20:16.180 groteschi, a style meant purely to titillate 00:20:16.180 --> 00:20:18.900 and amuse, as some 16th century critics thought. 00:20:19.079 --> 00:20:21.420 Just weird for weird's sake. But there is just 00:20:21.420 --> 00:20:23.900 no historical evidence for the heretic angle. 00:20:24.200 --> 00:20:26.960 As we discussed, his membership in the Brotherhood 00:20:26.960 --> 00:20:30.029 of Our Lady he was as establishment as you could 00:20:30.029 --> 00:20:32.549 possibly get so if he wasn't a heretic if he 00:20:32.549 --> 00:20:35.250 wasn't a rebel in that sense what was he a square 00:20:35.250 --> 00:20:38.910 well he was a moralist that is the modern scholarly 00:20:38.910 --> 00:20:41.789 consensus scholars now view his vision as being 00:20:41.789 --> 00:20:44.029 completely consistent with the orthodox religious 00:20:44.029 --> 00:20:47.009 belief systems of the late middle ages he wasn't 00:20:47.009 --> 00:20:48.869 painting this stuff to be trippy he was painting 00:20:48.869 --> 00:20:51.589 it to be didactic didactic so meant to teach 00:20:51.589 --> 00:20:53.869 a lesson yes think of it as a sermon in paint 00:20:54.319 --> 00:20:56.400 He lived in the same town where Erasmus, the 00:20:56.400 --> 00:20:59.079 famous humanist scholar, was educated. And there 00:20:59.079 --> 00:21:01.259 are definite parallels between Erasmus's writing, 00:21:01.400 --> 00:21:04.119 which was often satirical and biting, and Bosch's 00:21:04.119 --> 00:21:06.660 bold style of painting. So the weird monsters 00:21:06.660 --> 00:21:08.920 aren't just random hallucinations. They are coded 00:21:08.920 --> 00:21:12.119 messages. Absolutely not random. And this is 00:21:12.119 --> 00:21:15.059 where his genius really shines. The art historian 00:21:15.059 --> 00:21:17.579 Dirk Bax did a lot of work on this. He argued 00:21:17.579 --> 00:21:19.940 that Bosch's paintings are often visual translations 00:21:19.940 --> 00:21:23.410 of verbal metaphors and puns from the time. Visual 00:21:23.410 --> 00:21:25.750 puns. That is fascinating. Can you give us an 00:21:25.750 --> 00:21:28.390 example? Sure. Think about the oversized fruit 00:21:28.390 --> 00:21:31.470 in the Garden of Earthly Delights. In Dutch folklore 00:21:31.470 --> 00:21:34.750 and language of the time, plucking fruit or various 00:21:34.750 --> 00:21:37.529 fruit metaphors often alluded to sexual acts 00:21:37.529 --> 00:21:40.849 or promiscuity. Ah, okay. I see where this is 00:21:40.849 --> 00:21:43.450 going. So a giant strawberry isn't just a big 00:21:43.450 --> 00:21:46.549 fruit. It's a symbol of fleeting, sinful pleasure. 00:21:46.829 --> 00:21:49.460 Because a strawberry doesn't last long. Exactly. 00:21:49.599 --> 00:21:51.539 It tastes incredibly sweet for a moment, and 00:21:51.539 --> 00:21:53.799 then it rots. It's soft. It's easily crushed. 00:21:54.079 --> 00:21:57.299 He was coding these moral truths into these crazy, 00:21:57.460 --> 00:21:59.920 unforgettable images. That makes the reading 00:21:59.920 --> 00:22:02.319 of the painting so much richer. It's not just, 00:22:02.359 --> 00:22:04.900 look, the weird bird monster. It's a language 00:22:04.900 --> 00:22:07.200 that we have mostly forgotten. It's like trying 00:22:07.200 --> 00:22:09.779 to read a political cartoon from 500 years ago. 00:22:09.940 --> 00:22:11.559 If you don't know the context, it just looks 00:22:11.559 --> 00:22:13.220 like a funny drawing. But if you know the code. 00:22:13.500 --> 00:22:14.980 If you know the code, it's a sharp critique. 00:22:15.470 --> 00:22:17.710 exactly and there's another layer to this which 00:22:17.710 --> 00:22:20.349 is what some call the irony or the shield theory 00:22:21.079 --> 00:22:23.920 Joseph Karner, an art historian, suggests that 00:22:23.920 --> 00:22:26.660 this cryptic symbolism was also a very clever 00:22:26.660 --> 00:22:29.160 defense mechanism. A defense mechanism against 00:22:29.160 --> 00:22:32.140 what? Against criticism from the powerful. Think 00:22:32.140 --> 00:22:35.500 about it. If you paint a direct political attack 00:22:35.500 --> 00:22:38.680 on a corrupt bishop or a greedy nobleman, you 00:22:38.680 --> 00:22:41.039 might get in serious trouble. You could be arrested 00:22:41.039 --> 00:22:44.019 or worse. Right. But if you disguise your criticism 00:22:44.019 --> 00:22:47.000 as a fantasy, as a monster or a scene from hell, 00:22:47.160 --> 00:22:51.039 you have plausible deniability. It's just a joke 00:22:51.039 --> 00:22:53.119 defense. The medieval version of it. Or it's 00:22:53.119 --> 00:22:55.000 just the Bible. You can say, oh, I'm just painting 00:22:55.000 --> 00:22:57.900 a demon from scripture. But maybe the local viewers 00:22:57.900 --> 00:23:00.480 would recognize the face of a famously corrupt 00:23:00.480 --> 00:23:03.059 official on that demon. That is absolutely genius. 00:23:03.319 --> 00:23:05.619 It shields him from harm while allowing him to 00:23:05.619 --> 00:23:08.019 appeal to everyone. The conservatives look at 00:23:08.019 --> 00:23:10.940 it and see a stern warning against sin. And the 00:23:10.940 --> 00:23:13.519 more progressive or critical viewers see a satire 00:23:13.519 --> 00:23:16.119 of the establishment. It's a Trojan horse. The 00:23:16.119 --> 00:23:18.500 monsters of the horse. And the critique is hidden 00:23:18.500 --> 00:23:21.789 inside. Precisely. It allows the art to be two 00:23:21.789 --> 00:23:23.869 things at once, which is why it's so endlessly 00:23:23.869 --> 00:23:26.549 debatable. But here's the problem with studying 00:23:26.549 --> 00:23:29.509 a guy who used so many disguises and lived 500 00:23:29.509 --> 00:23:32.950 years ago, the detective story. We don't even 00:23:32.950 --> 00:23:34.670 know for sure how many of these paintings are 00:23:34.670 --> 00:23:37.529 actually his. This is the headache for every 00:23:37.529 --> 00:23:40.109 museum curator who thinks they have a Bosch. 00:23:40.369 --> 00:23:43.349 He didn't date his paintings. He signed some 00:23:43.349 --> 00:23:46.170 of them, but not all of them. And to make matters 00:23:46.170 --> 00:23:48.859 even worse, Some of the signatures on existing 00:23:48.859 --> 00:23:51.380 paintings are fakes that were added later by 00:23:51.380 --> 00:23:53.619 dealers to drive up the price. Because having 00:23:53.619 --> 00:23:56.440 a Bosch was a status symbol. A huge status symbol. 00:23:56.599 --> 00:23:58.619 And his style was so popular, right? So people 00:23:58.619 --> 00:24:00.680 were copying him constantly. It became a brand. 00:24:00.900 --> 00:24:03.400 It became its own genre. He was incredibly popular, 00:24:03.579 --> 00:24:05.299 even in his lifetime and certainly right after 00:24:05.299 --> 00:24:07.460 his death. Other artists were just churning out. 00:24:07.740 --> 00:24:10.160 Bosch -like paintings full of monsters and weirdness. 00:24:10.319 --> 00:24:13.539 So for centuries, we had this incredibly inflated 00:24:13.539 --> 00:24:15.759 idea of how much work he actually produced. So 00:24:15.759 --> 00:24:18.119 how much did the official catalog shrink? Well, 00:24:18.220 --> 00:24:21.019 early 20th century historians, guys like Tolney 00:24:21.019 --> 00:24:24.099 and Ballas, thought he painted somewhere between 00:24:24.099 --> 00:24:28.880 30 and 50 works. By 1980, a scholar named Gerd 00:24:28.880 --> 00:24:31.400 Unberfert had whittled that down to about 25 00:24:31.400 --> 00:24:34.799 paintings and 14 drawings. And today. What's 00:24:34.799 --> 00:24:36.880 the consensus? Today, the number of paintings 00:24:36.880 --> 00:24:39.160 that are confidently attributed directly to his 00:24:39.160 --> 00:24:42.119 hand is still hovering around 25. And this is 00:24:42.119 --> 00:24:44.380 largely thanks to the work of the Bosch Research 00:24:44.380 --> 00:24:47.470 and Conservation Project, the BRCP. These are 00:24:47.470 --> 00:24:49.529 the people using the high -tech forensic stuff. 00:24:49.750 --> 00:24:52.849 Yes. They started using a technique called infrared 00:24:52.849 --> 00:24:55.509 reflectography. Okay, can you explain what that 00:24:55.509 --> 00:24:57.710 is for the layperson? How does that work? Sure. 00:24:58.009 --> 00:25:00.450 Infrared reflectography basically allows researchers 00:25:00.450 --> 00:25:02.930 to see through the top layers of paint to the 00:25:02.930 --> 00:25:05.769 underdrawing, the original sketch that the artist 00:25:05.769 --> 00:25:07.490 made on the panel before they started painting. 00:25:07.789 --> 00:25:10.690 Oh. Well, carbon, which is used in charcoal or 00:25:10.690 --> 00:25:13.950 ink for sketching, absorbs infrared light. The 00:25:13.950 --> 00:25:16.470 oil paint, on the other hand, largely becomes... 00:25:16.460 --> 00:25:18.480 becomes transparent to it. So the sketch underneath 00:25:18.480 --> 00:25:20.779 becomes visible. So it's like an x -ray for the 00:25:20.779 --> 00:25:22.319 artist's initial thoughts. You can see their 00:25:22.319 --> 00:25:25.240 first draft. Exactly. And why does the underdrawing 00:25:25.240 --> 00:25:27.859 matter so much for attribution? Because Bosch 00:25:27.859 --> 00:25:30.380 had that sketchy, energetic style we talked about 00:25:30.380 --> 00:25:33.299 earlier. And his underdrawings are very distinct. 00:25:33.500 --> 00:25:34.960 You can see him working out the composition, 00:25:35.240 --> 00:25:38.160 making changes on the fly, fixing mistakes directly 00:25:38.160 --> 00:25:40.809 on the panel. He's thinking with his brush. Whereas 00:25:40.809 --> 00:25:43.170 a copyist? A copyist, on the other hand, is usually 00:25:43.170 --> 00:25:45.990 just tracing a finished image. Their underdrawing 00:25:45.990 --> 00:25:49.210 will be very clean, very precise, with no corrections. 00:25:49.450 --> 00:25:50.990 Because they're just copying a finished product. 00:25:51.049 --> 00:25:52.690 There's no creative process happening. Right. 00:25:52.750 --> 00:25:54.849 So if the underdrawing is too clean, too perfect, 00:25:54.990 --> 00:25:58.269 it's probably a copy. If it's messy and energetic 00:25:58.269 --> 00:26:00.869 and full of changes, it might just be the master 00:26:00.869 --> 00:26:04.269 himself. So did the BRCP find any hidden treasures 00:26:04.269 --> 00:26:06.789 with this tech? Any big surprises? They had a 00:26:06.789 --> 00:26:10.539 huge win in 2016. There was a small panel of 00:26:10.539 --> 00:26:12.420 The Temptation of St. Anthony that was sitting 00:26:12.420 --> 00:26:14.720 in the Nelson -Atkins Museum in Kansas City. 00:26:14.859 --> 00:26:17.359 For years, it was labeled as a workshop piece. 00:26:17.599 --> 00:26:19.640 Meaning maybe a student did it or a follower. 00:26:19.779 --> 00:26:23.019 Exactly. The BRCP analyzed it, looked at the 00:26:23.019 --> 00:26:25.640 messy, creative underdrawing, and they upgraded 00:26:25.640 --> 00:26:29.019 it to an authentic Bosch. Wow. That must have 00:26:29.019 --> 00:26:30.700 been a very good day for the Nelson -Atkins Museum. 00:26:31.119 --> 00:26:34.079 A very, very good day. Their asset just appreciated 00:26:34.079 --> 00:26:36.880 significantly in both monetary value and prestige. 00:26:37.220 --> 00:26:40.559 But there were losses too. The BRCP questioned 00:26:40.559 --> 00:26:44.670 some very famous works. Oh. Like what? They suggested 00:26:44.670 --> 00:26:47.109 that the seven deadly sins in the Prado Museum 00:26:47.109 --> 00:26:49.890 in Madrid and Christ carrying the cross in Ghent, 00:26:49.890 --> 00:26:52.190 two very famous paintings, might not actually 00:26:52.190 --> 00:26:54.910 be by Bosch himself. No way. They think they 00:26:54.910 --> 00:26:56.829 might be high -quality workshop productions, 00:26:56.910 --> 00:27:00.269 but not from the master's own hand. Ouch. That 00:27:00.269 --> 00:27:02.769 changes how we view history. You walk into a 00:27:02.769 --> 00:27:04.269 museum, you see the little plaque on the wall, 00:27:04.309 --> 00:27:06.809 and you assume it's gospel truth. But science 00:27:06.809 --> 00:27:08.789 is literally rewriting the art history books. 00:27:08.990 --> 00:27:11.410 It is. It reminds us that art history is not 00:27:11.410 --> 00:27:13.089 static. It's an ongoing process. investigation. 00:27:13.809 --> 00:27:15.950 Just because a painting has hung in a famous 00:27:15.950 --> 00:27:18.410 museum for 200 years doesn't mean we know everything 00:27:18.410 --> 00:27:20.609 about it. So let's try and bring this all back 00:27:20.609 --> 00:27:24.950 to the man himself, Geronimus van Aken, a wealthy 00:27:24.950 --> 00:27:27.630 religious man from a family of painters living 00:27:27.630 --> 00:27:30.849 in a provincial town in the Netherlands. He witnesses 00:27:30.849 --> 00:27:34.130 a fire that burns his entire world down. He rejects 00:27:34.130 --> 00:27:36.789 the smooth, perfect style of his time for something 00:27:36.789 --> 00:27:39.829 rough and urgent. And he uses that style to create 00:27:39.829 --> 00:27:42.349 the world's most enduring nightmares. That is 00:27:42.349 --> 00:27:44.609 the paradox of Bosch right there. He used the 00:27:44.609 --> 00:27:47.349 imagery of madness to preach sanity. He used 00:27:47.349 --> 00:27:49.430 monsters to talk about what it means to be human. 00:27:49.630 --> 00:27:51.890 And that, I think, is the final takeaway for 00:27:51.890 --> 00:27:54.829 me. His monsters weren't just random hallucinations 00:27:54.829 --> 00:27:57.630 from a fever dream. They were a mirror held up 00:27:57.630 --> 00:27:59.769 to the very real anxieties of the late Middle 00:27:59.769 --> 00:28:02.970 Ages. The fear of hell, the fear of sin, the 00:28:02.970 --> 00:28:05.210 fear of societal corruption. And honestly, those 00:28:05.210 --> 00:28:07.069 fears aren't so different from our own anxieties 00:28:07.069 --> 00:28:09.269 today. We just have different monsters. We have 00:28:09.269 --> 00:28:11.630 different fears. You know, climate change, pandemics, 00:28:11.630 --> 00:28:13.970 technology running amok. But the fundamental 00:28:13.970 --> 00:28:16.990 anxiety about chaos and losing control is the 00:28:16.990 --> 00:28:19.769 same. Bosch gave form to the formless fears of 00:28:19.769 --> 00:28:21.650 his time. Here's a thought to leave you with. 00:28:21.680 --> 00:28:24.380 And it goes back to that irony or shield theory 00:28:24.380 --> 00:28:27.660 we discussed. If Bosch used all this bizarre 00:28:27.660 --> 00:28:31.079 symbolism to shield himself from criticism, if 00:28:31.079 --> 00:28:33.819 he was hiding his true political or social attacks 00:28:33.819 --> 00:28:37.500 behind these crazy demons, are we even seeing 00:28:37.500 --> 00:28:40.279 the real meaning today? That is the provocative 00:28:40.279 --> 00:28:43.059 question, isn't it? We might be staring at the 00:28:43.059 --> 00:28:46.329 decor. We are so mesmerized and distracted by 00:28:46.329 --> 00:28:48.849 the bird -headed monster eating a person or the 00:28:48.849 --> 00:28:51.990 pair of ears wielding a giant knife that we completely 00:28:51.990 --> 00:28:55.230 miss the specific critique of a corrupt local 00:28:55.230 --> 00:28:58.509 bishop or a greedy merchant that his contemporaries 00:28:58.509 --> 00:29:00.910 would have spotted immediately. So the real political 00:29:00.910 --> 00:29:03.390 punch might be totally lost to history, leaving 00:29:03.390 --> 00:29:05.390 us just with a nightmare. We're just looking 00:29:05.390 --> 00:29:07.450 at the special effects and we've completely missed 00:29:07.450 --> 00:29:09.500 the plot. Next time you look at the Garden of 00:29:09.500 --> 00:29:12.000 Earthly Delights, don't just look for the giant 00:29:12.000 --> 00:29:14.660 food or the funny monsters. Look at the frozen 00:29:14.660 --> 00:29:17.640 hell. Look at the cold. And wonder what Geronimus 00:29:17.640 --> 00:29:20.359 was really, truly trying to tell us. It's a chilling 00:29:20.359 --> 00:29:22.299 thought. Thanks for diving deep with us. We'll 00:29:22.299 --> 00:29:22.819 see you next time.