The Dutch Masters - Bosch

Interesting study of a well loved Dutch master painter.

Nice overview of his work. Not much explanation of why his images were so weird but then again not much is known about the personal life of the painter. I was surprised that he apparently was a very popular painter during his lifetime. Maybe the Dutch have a taste for the fantastical.

I purchased this DVD to show to my high school art students, but I was so bored I could barely sit through it myself. It amazes me that these dry British art historians have managed to turn some of the world's most fascinating art into boring academic drivel. What a disappointment.

very informative well presented

One of the favorite stopping points in the long walk through the European galleries of New York's Metropolitan Museum is before one of Bosch's portrayals of just what fate the many sinners in this world have to look forward to in the next. Kultur gives us a brief introduction to his work, what we might expect to understand and what even the experts have difficulty with...and even find it impossible to interpret. His life, we are told, is almost completely unrecorded and unknown. It is known when he died but not exactly when he was born (one can guess by certain known events in his life), we know when and where he was married, and have three or four additional documents relating to legal activities, and that is it. He did not date his pictures and left no records with regard to them, so all the rest is guesswork. We know what city be spent all of his life in but not about him within that city except for a record or two that suggest he was a churchman of some faithfulness. Given this paucity of fact, we are given some views of the present city reflecting the past, and some suggestion about the life and beliefs of residents of his time (late 1400's and the 1500s until his death in 1516.) Aside from the dating problems which lead chronologies vary with the author constructing them, there is the problem of his use of symbols and allegories, some of which are known about today and some of which resist our efforts in interpretation. Never mind. The merit of this introduction to his work is the concentration on a few paintings clearly showing the way in which he constructs the contrast between the good life in Christ and the horrors of life after death for the sinners. He was, indeed, quite imaginative in conceiving the latter.This is best seen by one needing an introduction to the work of Bosch. Four experts are given a chance to speak to each major point made by the narrator who is sure to include in summary the gist of what they say. The pictures are displayed more than adequately for introductory purposes.