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The art of Hieronymus Bosch (c. 1450 – 1516) has captivated, challenged, and

enlightened viewers for ages. Bosch stands out in history for his unusual style which makes

interpreting his paintings very difficult. His paintings illustrate moral and religious concepts and

yet are whimsical and bizarre at the same time. Fiendish hybrid monsters are depicted in hellish

landscapes, while youthful, naked individuals cheerfully seduce and frolic with giant

strawberries in heavenly scenes. Since Bosch’s art is so bizarre, many critics and art historians

have a difficult time interpreting his work. The first reference to Bosch was not until a generation

after his death by Spanish nobleman Felipe de Guevara, who owned several of Bosch’s works.

Guevara complained that Bosch did not receive enough credit and that he was only known for

simply creating monsters and chimeras.1 As recent as the mid-twentieth century, a well-known

historian of Netherlandish art Erwin Panofsky did not even attempt to discuss Bosch and instead

offered a rhyme from Renaissance humanism: ‘This too high for my wit, I prefer to omit.’2 What

makes interpreting Bosch’s work so frustrating is that there is little documentation of his life.

Bosch’s unusual imagery leads some to believe that his art symbolized heretical beliefs. In Linda

Harris’ book, The Secret Heresy of Hieronymus Bosch, she analyzes the symbolism in some of

Bosch’s most famous paintings to prove that he may have had ties to Catharism, one of the

greatest heresies the Catholic Church faced in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.3 Harris argues

that while Bosch was carrying out commissions for his Catholic patrons he was coding the

paintings with his heretical beliefs. The most famous of Bosch’s works is his painting The

Garden of Earthly Delights; it is a bit confusing but it best representation that can link Bosch’s

heretical ties to Catharism.

1 Laurinda S. Dixon, Bosch (London: Phaidon, 2003), 4.2 Ibid. 3 Malcolm Barber, The Cathars (Harlow, England: Pearson Education, 2000), 1.

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During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the people who lived during this time were

obsessed with trying to explain the evils of the world by talk of demons, witches, and the power

of the devil. Since these ideas were prevalent in folk culture, the Church began to absorb these

ideas fueling the late Middle Ages obsession with religion. The more extreme the obsession

became, the more negative views of the world contradicted the establishments of the Catholic

Church. On one hand, it was said the world was lost to Satan through man’s sin, but on the other

the Church stated that God was the creator and ruler of the earth. The contradictions between the

Church’s view and experiences in everyday life caused confusion. Some lay Christians began to

believe that Satan was the ruler of the world, but could never come to an understanding. They

were not sure if he was acting alone, or doing God’s work in punishing man for their sins. This

sort of dualism was out of respect for the Church, but was not quite heretical. It was simply a

belief of good versus evil. This tame dualistic belief never matched that of the Cathars. Bosch’s

contemporaries often painted saints tempted by devils or scenes of hellish punishment, but these

scenes didn’t conflict with the Church. There was folk art in the margins of medieval

manuscripts of gargoyles and mockeries of the clergy, but it never went far enough to offend the

Church. According the Lynda Harris, Bosch’s paintings mock the Church, and show his

rebelliousness.4

The Catholic Church’s greatest challenge of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries was

Catharism. The Cathars could not accept that an omnipotent and eternal God could have created

the material world. For the Cathars, the world was created by something evil. This creator was

either a fallen being who had seduced the angelic souls and trapped them in this world, or he was

co-eternal and independent of the Good God Spirit. The only way in which souls could be

released was through consolamentum, by which they could return to their guardian spirits in

4 Ibid., 44.

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heaven. This ceremony was like a spiritual baptistm that would transform an ordinary believer

into one of the elect perfecti. The origins of Catharism remain a mystery, other than it is thought

that it stems from Gnostic or Manichean belief.5

Hieronymus Bosch, whose real name was Jerome Anthoniszoon, was born in ‘s-

Hertogenbosch (Bois-le-Duc), located in the southern Netherlands and just to the south of

Amsterdam. Bosch’s family name was Van Aken – which gives evidence that he had relative

that come from the town of Aachen. Aachen is near Cologne and Trier, where Cathar heretics are

known to have lived during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.6 Family records show them

arriving in ‘s-Hertogenbosch in the late thirteenth century, after attempts were made to wipe out

the Cathars. This suggests that Bosch’s family could possibly be refugees of the Cathar

Inquisition. There is little documentation of Hieronymus Bosch other than he was mentioned in

records of the local chapter of the Brotherhood of Our Lady, of which he was an active member.7

Most of the members of the Brotherhood of our Lady belonged to the ‘s-Hertogenbosch urban

élite. Those sworn in admitted to honoring the social status of their families. Bosch’s

membership was probably owed to a combination of his status as a well-known painter and

because of his wife’s higher status. The confraternity bridged the gap between Church and town

and allowed their members to practice active piety through ways that paralleled the Church.

During Bosch’s time, members of the confraternity came from all over Europe. Most of the

confraternity was made up of academics and priests – including Franciscans, Dominicans, and

Carthusians. With his membership in the Brotherhood of Our Lady, Bosch would have had

connections to wealthy merchants and patrons. The ties he would have had to those of higher

5 Malcolm Barber, The Cathars (Harlow, England: Pearson Education, 2000), 1-2.6 Lynda Harris, The Secret Heresy of Hieronymus Bosch (Edinburgh: Floris Books, 1995, 71.7 "Hieronymus Bosch." Encyclopedia of World Biography. Detroit: Gale, 1998.Biography In Context. Web. (Accessed 19 Apr. 2013).

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status could attribute to the intellectual and theological content of his paintings.8 Evidence from

during his lifetime suggests that his work was admired by individuals of higher status. Among

those who admired his work were fellow Brotherhood brothers the Counts of Nassau, who at one

time owned the Garden of Earthly Delights. Spanish nobleman Diego de Guevara, who first

wrote of Bosch, owned six paintings including the Seven Deadly Sins and Four Last Things. It

was not unusual for Spanish commissions because of the trade between Spain and the

Netherlands. Philip the Handsome and his mother-in-law, Queen Isabella of Spain, are also noted

for owning works by Bosch.9

Just as Bosch is a mystery to historians, so is his subject matter. Many of the paintings

attributed to Bosch do not include his signature or date. Since artists were traditionally assigned

to the lower class of medieval society, many did not even sign their works; this is the case with

Bosch. It can be determined that his early works were produced between the 1480s-1490s, and

his mature period lasting from 1500 until his death in 1516.10 The Renaissance ideals did not

reach the Netherlands until 1516, the year of Bosch’s death. During the fifteenth century, artists

of the Netherlands were able to create their own techniques of realism to express traditional

medieval Christian ideas.11

There are no known commentaries from the time of Bosch that critique his work, but

there is one statement that survives from when it was taken by the Spanish. In the Escorial, the

monastic residence of the King of Spain, Philip II, the imagery of the painting appeared alien and

suspicious despite its popularity.12 Bosch had to be cleared of heresy before he was even

discussed. Paintings obtained for the royal collection were always questioned especially if faith

8 Ibid.9 Laurinda S. Dixon, Bosch (London: Phaidon, 2003), 33.10 Lynda Harris, The Secret Heresy of Hieronymus Bosch (Edinburgh: Floris Books, 1995), 40.11 Ibid., 41.12 Ibid., 8.

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was involved. Suspicion of heresy was everywhere, even in images. In order to be cleared of

heresy through the use of images, the person creating those works had to prove their faith. Bosch

was already deceased when his work came into question. Bosch needed to be proved “unjustly

suspected of heresy”, as the monk José de Siguenza warned those who were already trying to dig

up Bosch’s past. He warned that they should not be mislead by Bosch’s works because Bosch

had shown truths through poetic license. All Bosch can be credited with is shedding light on the

chaos and sins of the world in a way that was so unprecedented in history that there were no

rules Bosch could have broken.13

Lynda Harris offers the view that Bosch was a heretic. She states that Bosch only

appeared to be a conventional Christian and his piety was superficial. Bosch was mystic but did

not follow the known mystic, dualists such as Jan van Ruysbroeck or the Brothers of the

Common Life. These dualists were critical of the clergy but still supported the Papacy and the

Church. Bosch’s descriptions of the Church and Papacy according to Harris were not so friendly.

Bosch tires to fit his symbolism into orthodoxy, which can account for his oddity. According to

the art historian Ludwig von Baldass, who wrote during the twentieth century, shows Bosch to

be both a dualist and a Christian. According to Baldass, Bosch shows hints of Zoroastrian

philosophy while covering it up with medieval classicism. Bosch may have believed the earth to

be initially created evil, as a world of unbelief and heresy.14 Harris points out that Bosch could

not have been a dualist and a Christian because both beliefs were in constant conflict. She

explains that Bosch’s work can only be described as from a dualist mentality.

Of all the works done by Bosch, none stands out more than the painting The Garden of

Earthly Delights – of which the original name, is unknown. What is unsettling to scholars

13 Ibid. 14 Lynda Harris, The Secret Heresy of Hieronymus Bosch (Edinburgh: Floris Books, 1995), 48.

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besides not knowing the original name is that it does not follow traditional iconography of the

time.15 Many scholars do not accept the theory that Bosch was a secret heretic. Instead, scholars

attribute his bizarre themes to alchemy and astrology. According to one of the foremost scholars

of Bosch, Charles De Tolney, does not go along with pictorial and literary tradition, and uses

dream symbols that anyone can relate to. Bosch is the dreamer and judge of dreams, and actor

and stage manager in the same person.16

15 Hans Belting and Hieronymus Bosch, Hieronymus Bosch, Garden of Earthly Delights (Munich: Prestel Pub, 2002), 7.16 Charles De Tolnay, Hieronymus Bosch (New York: Reynal, 1966), 202.

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The

Garden of Earthly Delights17 is a triptych, with one image on a set of doors that open to three

separate images. While closed, the triptych shows a depiction of the creation of the world with

God the Father as the Creator in the upper left hand corner. The door bears the words “He

himself said it, and all was done” and “He himself ordered it and all was created.”18 The open

triptych shows three scenes. The left panel shows Paradise, and the right shows hell. The center

represents humankind and diverse worldly pleasures. Tolnay’s dream analysis of Bosch’s psyche

depicts the center as nothing more than a love fest. The various fruits like strawberries,

raspberries, and grapes are nothing more than godless symbols of sexual lust (Fig. 1). Fish swim

in the air, angels roam the earth, man and beast frolic in strange circular rhythm.19 Strange

creatures litter the landscape giving the painting a whimsical feel. The center panel of the work is

a conglomeration of repressed desires. According to Tolnay the center panel is marked with

17 Hieronymus Bosch. Garden of Earthly Delights. 1500. Museo Nacional del Prado. Accessed 24 April 2013. < http://www.museodelprado.es/en/the-collection/online-gallery/on-line-gallery/obra/the-garden-of-earthly-delights/>18 Museo Nacional Del Prado. “Online Gallery: The Garden of Earthly Delights.” Museo Nacional Del

Prado. http://www.museodelprado.es/en/the-collection/online-gallery/on-line-gallery/obra/the-garden-of-earthly-delights/ (accessed April 24, 2013).

19 Robert L. Delevoy, Bosch: Biographical and Critical Study. [Lausanne]: Skira; [distributed in the U.S. by World Pub. Co, 1960. 65.

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corruption against the two side panels of Paradise and hell.20 On the left, Paradise shows the

beginning of the fall with Eve’s temptation and the first notions of sin. Hell, on the right, shows

the third phase of earth becoming hell. The instruments of sin have become instruments of

punishment (Fig. 3).21 Fires, flames, dust, ashes, spikes, arrows and swords litter hell, as well as

strange devouring of sinners (Fig. 4). The powers of hell are on a warpath. There are hints of

sermons, Bible lore, images from the Lives of the Saints, and gleanings from the Apocalypse.

Passages from St Augustine (De divination daemonum) and St Bernard (Apologia ad

Guillelmum) played out in these scenes suggest that Bosch knew of these literary sources.22 Alain

de la Roche, a Dominican from Brittany, was living in the Netherlands during the fifteenth

century and Bosch may have heard him preach. Roche typifies the warped piety of the fifteenth

century and the expression it gave to religious sentiment. He writes sermons that convey his

colorful view and they are marked for their plethora of sexual imagery. Roche saw beasts

personifying sins of the flesh, equipped with fearsome genital organs and streams of fire whose

smoke darkened the earth.23

20 Museo Nacional Del Prado. “Online Gallery: The Garden of Earthly Delights.” Museo Nacional Del Prado. http://www.museodelprado.es/en/the-collection/online-gallery/on-line-gallery/obra/the-garden-of-earthly-delights/ (accessed April 24, 2013).21 Charles De Tolnay, Hieronymus Bosch (New York: Reynal, 1966), 204.22 Robert L. Delevoy, Bosch: Biographical and Critical Study. [Lausanne]: Skira; [distributed in the U.S. by

World Pub. Co, 1960. 66.23 Ibid., 69.

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Figure 1 Hieronymus Bosch. Garden of Earthly Delights. 1500. Web Gallery of Art. Accessed 24 April 2013. < http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/b/bosch/index.html>

Figure 2 Hieronymus Bosch. Garden of Earthly Delights. 1500. Web Gallery of Art. Accessed 24 April 2013. < http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/b/bosch/index.html>

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Against views that show Bosch as a fanatical artist who was simply exaggerating events

of the fifteenth century, Lynda Harris sees Cathar symbolism. According to Harris, all Cathars

believed that Satan and the creator God, Jehovah were a single entity. They believed that Satan

and Jehovah used the realm of the world to collect souls. If Bosch was a Cathar, then Satan

would have played a role in how he perceived the world. Bosch rarely depicts Jehovah and does

not ever paint Satan overtly. There is one particular image that is consistent within all of Bosch’s

works, which is the owl. The owl in the Middle Ages, was usually thought as a symbol of the

devil. The universal symbolism usually placed on the owl is that it is one of wisdom. Harris

Figure 3 Hieronymus Bosch. Garden of Earthly Delights. 1500. Web Gallery of Art. Accessed 24 April 2013. < http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/b/bosch/index.html>

Figure 4 Hieronymus Bosch. Garden of Earthly Delights. 1500. Web Gallery of Art. Accessed 24 April 2013. < http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/b/bosch/index.html>

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points out that it is the wisdom of darkness, witches and the occult.24 Therefore, Harris assigns

the owl as the Cathar symbol for Satan. Bosch’s owls are usually hidden and not as noticeable,

but they stand out in the Garden of Earthly Delights (Fig. 2).

The entire work of the Garden of Earthly Delights seems to be packed with Cathar

symbolism according to Harris. The behavior of Bosch’s souls in his painting relate to the Cathar

tradition in which trapped souls are drawn back to the physical world. Harris, in her analysis

focuses on the Garden of Earthly Delights as having the most Cathar heretical images. Cathar’s

had certain ceremonies of breaking bread, but Bosch does not explicitly show this act. Instead he

assigns grains to people in his paintings, which to Harris is enough to say that these grains are

representative of Cathar symbolism for souls. Sexuality and sexual acts are prevalent in Bosch’s

works (Fig. 1). In the Cathar faith, sex was the main cause of the soul’s entrapment in the

world.25

Harris’ analysis seems flawed. She tries to reference heretical imagery in other paintings

by Bosch, but she cannot fully back up her claim. She simply states that there are symbols based

off Cathar secret books. Her claims are repetitive and fall back to the same conclusion: that

Bosch was a heretic simply because of his strange symbols and not committing to a standard

artist technique for the time. Harris’ claim that Bosch could be a Cathar is an interesting one, yet

she does not fully back up her claim without repeating herself. Other scholars who have accepted

that Bosch was just strange can back their points up more clearly, as stated earlier in this paper.

Her thought that Bosch and his family were secret heretics long after the Cathar belief had been

mostly wiped out of Europe is very entertaining, but could Bosch really be a part of a secret

heresy that had been wiped out or dormant for over a hundred years? Again, she cannot fully

24 Lynda Harris, The Secret Heresy of Hieronymus Bosch (Edinburgh: Floris Books, 1995), 98.25 Ibid., 114.

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back up her claim other than saying it is so, Bosch is a heretic. One claim she makes that is

similar to other scholars, is that Bosch would have been an excellent psychoanalysis patient.

Despite the various views on Hieronymus Bosch, coupled with the scant facts that are

known about his life, the conclusion can be made that Bosch was one of a kind. His paintings are

open to various interpretations based on how one analyzes the period in which he lived. Bosch

lived during a fascinating time in Europe with many changes occurring spiritually and

worldwide. With the obsession and suspicion of heresy and the idea of the devil most prominent

during this time, it is no surprise that Bosch chose to show his interpretations the way he did. As

an artist, and part of an elite religious group such as the Brotherhood of our Lady, it is interesting

that Bosch was able to get away with the images that he painted because they seem controversial.

Bosch stands out in art history for creating art that was not ordinary. He was able to help bring

attention to the Netherlands and Northern Europe during the Reformation and Renaissance. His

originality fit the turbulence that was occurring during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

Whether Bosch was a secret heretic or just an artistic genius, his work stands out amongst all the

other art of the centuries and still allows us to question his motive. Since there are no writings

from him to defend his position, maybe he intended it that way. He created art for art’s sake and

chose to take all the knowledge he acquired from his contacts to make fantastical paintings to

give us an insight into the world of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

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Bibliography

Barber, Malcolm. The Cathars. Harlow, England: Pearson Education, 2000.

Belting, Hans, and Hieronymus Bosch. Hieronymus Bosch, Garden of Earthly Delights. Munich: Prestel Pub, 2002.

Bosch, Hieronymus, A. M. Koldeweij, Paul Vandenbroeck, and Bernard Vermet. Hieronymus Bosch: The Complete Paintings and Drawings. Amsterdam: Ludion Ghent, 2001.

Delevoy, Robert L. Bosch: Biographical and Critical Study. [Lausanne]: Skira; [distributed in the U.S. by World Pub. Co, 1960.

De Tolnay, Charles. Hieronymus Bosch. New York: Reynal, 1966.

Dillenberger, John. Images and Relics: Theological Perceptions and Visual Images in Sixteenth-Century Europe. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.

Dixon, Laurinda S. Bosch. London: Phaidon, 2003.

Harris, Lynda. The Secret Heresy of Hieronymus Bosch. Edinburgh: Floris Books, 1995.

"Hieronymus Bosch." Encyclopedia of World Biography. Detroit: Gale, 1998.Biography In Context. Web. 19 Apr. 2013.

Museo Nacional Del Prado. “Online Gallery: The Garden of Earthly Delights.” Museo Nacional Del Prado. http://www.museodelprado.es/en/the-collection/online-gallery/on-line-gallery/obra/the-garden-of-earthly-delights/ (accessed April 24, 2013).

Russell, Jeffrey Burton. The Devil: Perceptions of Evil from Antiquity to Primitive Christianity. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1977.

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