Hieronymus Bosch

Library Journal

Silver (art history, Univ. of Pennsylvania) uses his expertise in northern Renaissance art to synthesize recent scholarship. Netherlandish painter Hieronymus Bosch, best known for his Garden of Earthly Delightstriptych, was sincerely concerned with temptations of this life that result in terrible punishments in the next. Silver places Bosch's other triptychs and single panels firmly within 15th- and 16th-century religious art of the Low Countries. Although Bosch signed some paintings and drawings, none was dated; so Silver postulates a relative chronology while acknowledging problems with collaborative pieces, direct copies, forgeries, and works by artists inspired by Bosch's unique style. This analysis is appropriate for a scholarly audience, but the publisher has produced more of a coffee-table book. Bigger is not better when the result is way too heavy and bulky to read comfortably. Detail pages, intended for maximum visual impact, are so large and close-up that this reviewer had to keep pulling back from the book (particularly in the case of the nightmarish images of hell). Even more disturbing than some of the sinners' torments, however, is the high price. Recommended only for academic, museum, and public libraries collecting in this specialized area.
—Anne Marie Lane