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Bosch and Bruegel : from enemy painting to everyday life
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Bosch and Bruegel : from enemy painting to everyday life

by Joseph Leo Koerner

This study examines the artistic relationship between Hieronymus Bosch and Pieter Bruegel, tracing the evolution of genre painting from diabolical imagery. It analyses how depictions of everyday life emerged from phantasmagorical portrayals of a metaphysical enemy.

Accession 12016 ISBN 9780691172286 Publisher Princeton University Press
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Identity

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Bosch and Bruegel : from enemy painting to everyday life
vernon_id
16146
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12016
vernon_slug
bosch-and-bruegel-from-enemy-painting-to-everyday-life-joseph-leo-koerner

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External Location
location_reason
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isbn_issn→ isbn (when valid)
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Descriptive

production_date
2016
object_type
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object_status
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brief_description
In this visually stunning and much anticipated book, acclaimed art historian Joseph Koerner casts the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch and Pieter Bruegel in a completely new light, revealing how the painting of everyday life was born from what seems its polar opposite: the depiction of an enemy hell-bent on destroying us. Supreme virtuoso of the bizarre, diabolic, and outlandish, Bosch embodies the phantasmagorical force of painting, while Bruegel, through his true-to-life landscapes and frank depictions of peasants, is the artistic avatar of the familiar and ordinary. But despite their differences, the works of these two artists are closely intertwined. Bruegel began his career imitating Bosch's fantasies, and it was Bosch who launched almost the whole repertoire of later genre painting. But Bosch depicts everyday life in order to reveal it as an alluring trap set by a metaphysical enemy at war with God, whereas Bruegel shows this enemy to be nothing but a humanly fabricated mask. Attending closely to the visual cunning of these two towering masters, Koerner uncovers art history's unexplored underside: the image itself as an enemy. An absorbing study of the dark paradoxes of human creativity, Bosch and Bruegel is also a timely account of how hatred can be converted into tolerance through the agency of art. It takes readers through all the major paintings, drawings, and prints of these two unforgettable artists--including Bosch's notoriously elusive Garden of Earthly Delights, which forms the core of this historical tour de force. Elegantly written and abundantly illustrated, the book is based on Koerner's A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts, a series given annually at the National Gallery of Art, Washington.

Subjects & people

authors→ author (initial fill only)
Joseph Leo Koerner
tags→ tags
Art, Arts, Religions, Painting, Graphic arts, Drawing, Christian art and symbolism, Christianity, Bible, Painting, Dutch, Figurative painting, Genre painting, Dutch, Genre painting, Peasants in art
subject_people
Hieronymus Bosch (Dutch, b.1450, d.1516), Pieter Bruegel the Elder (Dutch, b.Circa 1525-1530, d.1569)
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