Much of Bosch’s work was commissioned. I don’t know the context of the images displayed here. Some it may come from local stories and legends. The last two images show his apocalyptic vision.
Blind leading the blind The Triumph of the Haywagon (detail) Notice the immense rat to the right – Bosch was born in the midst of the Black Death (1446-1552) The Triumph of the Haywagon (detail) What could the symbolism of that heart poster be? (top left) The Triumph of the Haywagon (detail) Here one sees Bosch as the father of modern surrealism – people who are half animal. Hell (detail) Here he becomes an artist of great fear and horror. Note the peaceful bird in the foreground. Few artists have achieved the feel of a nightmare like this. Interesting to see how nakedness can symbolise vulnerability for him.
I have had the privilege of seeing Hieronymous Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights (15th-16th-century). The difficulty with an original is that you can’t come up close enough to see the detail, which you need to do n Bosch’s case, but what you do see is the colour. I saw it in the Prado in Madrid and thereby hung a tale of the plunder of warfare, the time when Hapsburg Spain invaded Flanders and the Netherlands. But what inspires me with irony is that it is art that unites Europe. Every war bears witness to that.
The interpretation of his work differs from critic to critic, but his genius is unquestioned. Was he a satirist? Was he mocking religion? Is what he did pornographic? Is he a heretic or a conservative fanatic? Do his images carry obsessive guilt? His art, it is said, comes from the pessimism of his time, strongly influenced the fear of the fate of humankind. Here are a few images, not even his controversial ones. If we can see the genius of the work, our lack of understanding is, perhaps, less important.
TravellerAdam banished from EdenSt Christoper and a child Stations of the Cross. He sometimes used the visages of contemporary people he didn’t like.Stattions of the Cross. Top righthand corner the sympathetic criminal. Bottom righthand, the unsylpathetic criminal. Top lefthand corner, (possibly (the hands of) Simon of Cyrene. Bottom lefthand corner, St Veronica and the image of Christ.
H. de la Croix, R. Tansey (editors): Gardener’s Art Through the Ages (Harcourt, Brace & Ward, Inc., New York. 1970)
Ludwig von Baldass: Hieronymous Bosch (Verlag Anton Scholl & Co., Wien. 1943) (If only people had had more time for publishing art instead of making war.)
The work of Gordon Craig was revolutionary. Theatre sets were ‘realistic’ at the time, often crowded with detail. Craig was clearly influenced by the new spirit of modernism and one thinks of Paul Klee’s words ‘Artists have to rid themselves of European bad taste’. Traditional stage design for Craig probably was subject to this bad taste.
Stage design for a play on the burning of Troy, 1908
He realized the importance of lighting, much as Adolphe Appia in Switzerland was doing. Lights had always been footlights and now he removed them to the roof creating a completely different vision. His costume designs were sometimes influenced by the earliest European costume designs, though some of them broke the rules of contemporary design. His stage designs took him back, it seems, to the majesty of the Greek temple. These designs were often stark and severe.
Stage design for ‘The Temple’, 1911
What is fortunate about the work of Gordon Craig is that early in his career he recorded what he was doing by means of wood blocks. The prints from these wood blocks were easy to circulate and so as his fame and influence grew the records of his work were easy to circulate.
Costume design for W.B. Yeats’ ‘Mask of the Fool’, 1911
His influence is great. What he did has never dated. On the contrary, more designers through the 20th-century have not only imitated him, but even used original designs.
For once history wasn’t cruel to a genius. And Gordon Craig’s life story, starting with his illegitimate birth in 1872 to the well-known actress Ellen Terry, is one of success and recognition. Perhaps there would be the argument that he didn’t receive immediate recognition in England where he was born, but eventually the English realized what they had in him. He even survived the German occupation of France where he was incarcerated in 1940, but released in 1941.
Sorcereress in ‘Dido and ‘Aneas’, woodcut 1900
Having grown up in the theatre, he became a remarkable actor in the early-1890s. His performance of Hamlet at this time is noted by historians. This part of his life had a great influence on his choice to be a stage designer – you can design when you look at your task from an actor’s point of view.
Costume design for ‘Asis and Galatea’ in 1901
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It was from 1904, when he was discovered by the well-known stage director Kessler in Berlin, that Craig’s remarkable talents came to the fore. His concepts had matured in a short period of time and he published his book The Art of the Theatre in 1905. Within the next few years Craig became a household name in German theatre. As his fame spread, he also became involved in the theatre in Florence and later his concepts were used extensively in France.
Stage design for ‘Elektra’, 1905
#The theatre leaders in Russia quickly recognized Craig as a great modernist and Stanislavski, the influential writer on acting and directing, invited him to do a design for the 1911 production of Hamlet in Moscow.
Stage design for ‘The Vikings’ by Ibsen, 1908
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He was known to be a perfectionist and not easy to work with. He believed in a unity of vision which was not easily achieved with traditional methods of stage decorators and directors.
Stage design for as stage scene, 1908
In his personal life, he was no less busy. He fathered quite a few children from various women. One of them was the famed American dancer Isadora Duncan. He founded theatre magazines, one of which The Mask, has become a primary source for many theatre practitioners. He was active in expressing his theatre principles in the articles. In 1931 he published a biography of his mother and his own was to follow in 1956.
Stage design for ‘King Lear’, 1908
He moved to the South of France in 1948 and to Vence in 1952 where he died at the age of 94 in 1966.
Will Will Travel 