Dear Dan,
I want to tell you some thoughts on a fragment called “The Last Judgment” accredited with Hieronymus Bosch.
The painting was first recorded in 1822 as part of the collection of the Städtliche Gallery in Nuremberg. Later on, it came in possession of the Bavarian State Painting Collection, which also belongs to the Alte Pinakothek.
This fragment painted on oak wood was found 1817 (about 400 years after its production!) in the depot of the Nuremberg Castle in Bavaria. The original must have been huge: the dimensions of the fragment are 60cm x 114cm! It is supposed to be the lower right part of a triptych, if you look at the very bottom left you can see a big amount of dark blue fabric, this is said to belong to a great, standing archangel Michael. In that case, the painting would look as followed: at the top Christ as a judge, underneath him Michael weighing the souls, to his left, the resurrection of the elect, angels leading to heaven, and to his right the saved fragment: the damned, demons dragging them to hell. This structure was quite a typical one for the 15th century (check out below the polyptych of the Last Judgment by Rogier van der Weyden). It wasn’t even known for a long time if Bosch painted it or not –the new consensus is that it’s painted by an anonymous Bosch follower. This fragment displays the immense popularity and relevance of Bosch for the painters of his time.
What I find so exciting about this painting is not only its visual appeal, the content is so overwhelming: it depicts in a way a “hell on earth”, a system of the afterlife on our world, a visualization of dystopia in our future.
We know that Bosch was rather conservative, he belonged to this re-moralist brotherhood in his hometown and nearly never left the village he lived in. Most of his commissioners were catholic royals and his paintings said to depict the horror people would suffer in hell - a very creative horror though. The goal of his paintings was to depict this hell and create fear inside of the observer and therefore behave more morally correct. Nevertheless today his paintings fulfill some sort of different role, we find them amazing and fantastic, many see them as the pioneering precursors of the surrealist paintings and find similarities between Dali’s and other surrealist paintings and Bosch’s. It makes sense if I was a little Dali boy and would see one of this paintings I would’ve also been heavily inspired!
Even though most of his figures appear nude, the aspect of metamorphosis, collage of elements and transformation is highly linked to fashion design. In a way, I could see modern designs by JW Anderson, Jacquemus, Craig Green, Charles Jeffrey Loverboy and the likes popping up in his paintings. Bosch’s sceneries also remind me of big fetish parties from bird-perspective: people in weird costume next to naked women and men, all in rather experimental, almost painful poses, creeping around, in dream-like landscapes. Several Designers used his paintings as prints and inspiration for their creations, among them also Lee Alexander McQueen in his very last other-worldly collection.
I will describe a few of my favorite figures in this painting. On the left side of the painting, we see about 10 naked people crawling up from holes in the ground. The holes are dark slits, the earth seems to be spitting out people. Among others, we see a pope, two royals and also a priest or pastor, all identifiable by their headgear. The ground is hissing out flames. On center top we can see a green-ish demon, its spine-bones are bunching out strongly, its butt towards the viewer. Two big wings span from its back, a mix of butterfly, moth, and bird, very organic and delicate. It is looking at us, with big black shiny eyes. Kind of a cocky face expression. With its mouse or fox ears, it resembles a bat-demon somewhat. He’s farting on a tortured soul. Not far from it we can see a rather elegant humanoid bird-creature. It has legs and hands of a human and head and tail of a bird, the tail turns into something lizard-y. Its bulky body covered in a long yellow gown, with typical medieval sleeves, wide and long, adorned with white feathers at the hem. With a long metallic rake at hand, it seems to be pulling humans out of the soil. Underneath it, we find two rather funny promenading individuals. The first one is an old guy with a white hood around his face, to both sides of his head grow a few thin filigree feathers. Its facial expression displays annoyance or displeasure. The small body stands on four human feet and is shrouded in a blue cloak with white lace parts. A ridiculously big tail a la peacock-feather-meets-platypus peeks out from the cloak. The other figure has a slightly slimmer body shape. Its white skin is naked. The tail and head are of a mouse (or rat), the snout being very pointy red with extremely long white feelers. Its head is covered in a nun-like white cloth, crowned by a red pointy hat. It seems to have a boob, or an udder hanging from its torso. This weird figure is basically just standing there, quasi-hanging out in hell….
Next is a group of four dwarfs or ogres. These figures are very important because they wear oriental clothing and one of them bears the Turkish coat of arms symbol, the moon, on his turban. This is a typical symbol in medieval Christian painting: the Turkish as representatives of the whole Arabic world and Islamic culture, and furthers representing the bad, the evil enemy and the devil. In the very center of the painting, we can see a monster which looks like an explosion. It has no head, instead two tails at the bottom and top of its body. The colors from its skin and wings are fancifully chosen. This demon is brutally smacking a tortured person against the fire-spitting ground. The demons take charge of the dead, who are evidently being led off to hell!
All creatures and scenes shown on this fragment are illustrating the insanity reigning in the devilish hell, a huge chaos rules the world of the sinners and traitors and nobody is safe! The creatures appear as fusions and metamorphosed mutants, all shapes and forms are mingling, all colors and kinds are melting to creatures which take quite a while for our minds to process! The fashion creations in our current world are not far from this, they are wicked and weird, they are materialistic and abundant, exaggerated and extreme. Imagine if eventually, Bosch was just a visionary fortune teller, he might have had some sort of magical crystal ball streaming him live imagery from London or Paris catwalks and runways, providing him with endless inspiration for these Babylonian sceneries!? Or maybe he was able to peek through a future-curtain directly into the studios of the big fashion houses, he could see the poor tortured souls of the interns being maltreated by eccentrically dressed fashion fanatics! We will never know exactly how Bosch’s creatures were conceptualized, but don’t you believe my fashion-visionary theory to not be too far from reality?
text & image selection: Federico Protto
image sources: The Last Judgement (fragment), by Hieronymus Bosch: boschproject.org Polyphonic of the Last Judgment by Rogier van der Weyden: artbible.info First Bosch detail: pinterest.de Other two Bosch details: boschproject.org All runway images: vogue.com