The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (64 page)

(d.
c.
1425).
Spanish painter, active in Barcelona and its neighbourhood from 1388 to 1424. His work shows French and Sienese influences and is representative of the
International Gothic
style. Several of his documented works survive, for example the great composite altarpiece of Sta Clara, executed 1412–15, now in Vich Museum, Barcelona.

 
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(1817–91).
Dutch painter and lithographer, a member of the
Hague School
. He specialized in paintings of church interiors and was much inspired by the works of Emanuel de
Witte
—in many of his church interiors figures even wear 17th-cent. costumes.

 
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(
c.
1450–1516).
Netherlandish painter, named after the town of 's Hertogenbosch (Bois-le-Duc) in northern Brabant, where he seems to have lived throughout his life. His real name was Jerome van Aken (perhaps indicating family origins in Aachen, Germany). Bosch married well and was successful in his career (although his town was fairly isolated, it was prosperous and culturally stimulating). He was an orthodox Catholic and a prominent member of a local religious brotherhood, but his most characteristic paintings are so bizarre that in the 17th cent. he was reputed to have been a heretic. About forty genuine examples of Bosch's work survive, but none is dated and no accurate chronology can be made. It seems likely, however, that the conventional compositions, such as
The Crucifixion
(Musées Royaux, Brussels), are early works. The paintings for which he is famous are completely unconventional and are immediately recognizable by the fantastic half-human half-animal creatures, demons, etc. that are interspersed with human figures. The basic themes are sometimes quite simple, but heavily embroidered with subsidiary narratives and symbols. Scenes from the life of Christ or a saint show the innocent central figure besieged by horrific representations of evil and temptation—
The Temptation of St Anthony
(Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon) is the most spectacular instance. Other subjects were allegorical representations of biblical texts or proverbs, stressing in morbid vein the greed and folly of human beings and the fearful consequences of their sins. Of these,
The Haywain
and
The Garden of Earthly Delights
, both in the Prado, Madrid, are perhaps his best-known paintings.
Although his father was a painter, the origins of Bosch's style and technique are far from clear. His manner had little in common with those of Jan van
Eyck
or Rogier van der
Weyden
, the two painters who most influenced the development of style in the Low Countries until
c.
1500. There is, indeed, something strangely modern about Bosch's turbulent and grotesque fantasy and it is no surprise that his appeal to contemporary taste has been strong. But attempts to discover the psychological key to his motivation or to trace the origin of his imagery or find a coherent interpretation of the symbolism remain inconclusive. In his own time his fame stood high and a generation or so after his death his paintings were avidly collected by Philip II of Spain. Through the medium of prints his works reached a wider public and imitators appeared even in his lifetime. But it was not until Pieter
Bruegel
the Elder that another Netherlandish artist appeared with a genius strong enough to extend Bosch's vision rather than simply pastiche it. Apart from the riot of fantasy and that element of the grotesque which caused the
Surrealists
to claim Bosch as a forerunner, the haunting beauty of his genuine works derives largely from his glowing colour and superb technique, which was much more fluid and painterly than that of most of his contemporaries. Bosch was also an outstanding draughtsman, one of the first to make drawings as independent works.

 
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(1937– ).
British painter, sculptor, designer, and experimental artist. He was one of the
Royal College of Art
students who put British
Pop art
on the map at the
Young Contemporaries
exhibition of 1961. His work at this time was much concerned with the manipulative forces of advertising, treating the human figure in the same way as mass-produced goods and making them coalesce. However, his involvement in Pop art was short lived, and from 1966 he worked in sculpture, photography, film, and
Conceptual art
before returning to painting in 1979. Throughout the 1980s he taught painting at the University of Texas. Although his career has been fairly low key compared with those of some of his Pop art colleagues from the early 1960s, many critics think that Boshier's work has stood the test of time at least as well as theirs.

 
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(1573–1621).
Flemish flower and still-life painter, active mainly in the Netherlands, where he is recorded in Middelburg from 1593 to 1613 and later in the Utrecht Guild in 1616. Although he spent the major part of his life in the Netherlands, Bosschaert's style was basically Flemish—similar to that of Jan
Brueghel
, with whom he ranks in quality and as one of the pioneers of flower painting as an independent genre. His bouquets have a rich variety of flowers from different seasons arranged in a formal way. The degree of finish and exactitude, and the subtlety of the colour, are exceptional. His
Vase of Flowers
(Mauritshuis, The Hague,
c.
1620) is one of the most reproduced of all flower pieces. Bosschaert may fairly be said to have initiated the Dutch tradition of flower painting and his style was continued by his three sons,
Ambrosius the Younger
(1609–45),
Abraham
(1613–43), and
Johannes
(
c.
1610–
c.
1650), and also by his brother-in-law, Balthasar van der
Ast
.