Biography

Hieronymus Bosch was an early Flemish painter known for his inventive and surreal religious-themed paintings. One of his most famous works, The Garden of Earthly Delights (c. 1490–1510), consists of a triptych depicting both Eden and hell populated with uniquely imaginative monsters and scenes of torture. Bosch's works have uncharacteristically rough and raised surfaces for the time period, contrasting with other Netherlandish and Flemish painters whose surfaces sought an enamel-like smoothness that hid the brushstrokes, so as to suggest they had been created by divinity rather than the human hand. Born Jheronimus van Aken in 1450 in ’s-Hertogenbosch, the Netherlands, he became a respected and well-commissioned painter during his lifetime, creating several works for the Hapsburg court and inspiring followers like the painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder. There are only about 25 paintings today that can be definitively attributed to Bosch, five of which are in the collection of the Prado Museum in Madrid. Bosch died in 1516, and was buried in his hometown of ’s-Hertogenbosch on August 9 of that same year.