Lecture 25: Netherlandish Art in the 16

th Century

Netherlandish Art in the 16th Century ..............................................

Lecture 25

We now turn our attention to art in the Netherlands in the 16th century,

an astounding period in Western history and culture.

I

n this lecture, we’ll look at four 16th-century artists from the Netherlands:

Hieronymus Bosch, Joachim Patinir, Jan Gossaert, and Lucas van

Leyden. We’ll devote most of this lecture to Bosch’s famous triptych, the

Garden of Earthly Delights. Looking closely at both the subject matter and

symbolism of these four artists, we will see how these works were related to

and reÀ ected their historical period, leading up to the Reformation.

Hieronymus Bosch (1450–1516) was born and worked in ‘s-Hertogenbosch,

a quiet city in Holland near the border of modern Belgium. At the time, the

Netherlands was still a uni¿ ed state, and ‘s-Hertogenbosch (meaning “the

Duke’s Woods” and the source of the artist’s name) was one of the four largest

cities in Brabant, an important duchy under Burgundian control. Religious

life À ourished in the city, and Bosch belonged to a group of lay and religious

men and women called the Brotherhood of Our Lady. He ful¿ lled some

artistic commissions for the group, which shared the ascetic, spiritual, and

reforming ideas of the more important Brotherhood of the Common Life.

Bosch lived during the immediate pre-Reformation period, and numerous

passages in his work make clear his criticisms of the Church. Although we

know little about him, we know that his patrons were frequently from the

nobility and his works were well known to important collectors in the later

16 th century.

Our ¿ rst example shows Bosch’s multi-level Garden of Earthly Delights

(c. 1505–1510) from the exterior. It is not known who commissioned this

large triptych, but it is now certain that it was not intended for a church. Its

format and size, so often associated with altarpieces, has misled writers and

historians for generations. In 1517, a year after Bosch died, the painting was

in the palace of Henry III of Nassau, who was regent of the Netherlands. It

stayed in the possession of the Orange and Nassau family until the occupying