3: Medieval Bosch and Bruegel
[Click image to see larger version. For Bosch's, click any panel on the new screen to zoom in.]
Illustration from Guillaume of Tire's History of the Holy War manuscript, c. 1300
Miniature painted on vellum, size unknown
Bibliothèque nationale de France (Department of Manuscripts), Paris, France
BOTTOM: Hieronymus Bosch
Garden of Earthly Delights (Triptych), c. 1490-1510
Oil on oak panels, w389 cm x h220 cm (153" x 87")
Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain
Just a couple quick visual comparisons.
Above is a Medieval-era French manuscript illustration, representative of some very common techniques used and refined throughout the Middle Ages. Especially look at the vivid colors (which are descriptive but not realistic), and that flattened, from-above perspective used to fit a lot more world/action into the picture.
Below is a Hieronymus Bosch painting1, depicting (loosely) God with Adam and Eve in Eden on the left, then the 'Garden of Earthly Delights' with a bunch of...stuff...happening which most of the participants seem to be enjoying, and then a hellscape on the right2. Note again the perspective and the color, plus the figures dwarfed in a large landscape.
Bruegel's 'Icarus' shares a lot of visual DNA with both pieces, and Bosch (also from the Netherlands) was known to be a huge direct influence on him throughout his career. But we can also remember that by the time Bruegel was working, the Italian Renaissance (with its introduction of far more realistic geometric perspective) had already happened, and Bruegel himself had actually traveled to Italy and spent a few years there. So what we see in his work after that is likely a deliberate choice to use/not use the more 'sophisticated' techniques, and whatever remains of that flat Medieval look is intentional abstraction.
As far as Bosch and Bruegel, for a long time (as in a couple centuries), Bruegel had an enormous influence on other artists and was popular with collectors, but critics more or less dismissed him. Usually the critique was that his paintings were under-ambitious, and he was just a more 'normal' Bosch3...guess it's hard to compete with this business without coming off pretty tame.
NOTES:
1. Bosch was known for his trippy, intense religious panoramas. There's now a joke online about recognizing paintings by various famous artists, so in this case: "If the paintings have tons of little people in them but otherwise seem normal, it's Bruegel. If the paintings have lots of little people in them but also have a ton of crazy bullshit, it's Bosch."
2. When the panels close, there's also a cool depiction of the Earth in the process of creation.
3. FWIW, the idea of Bruegel as a 'second Bosch', mentioned by one of the first recognized 'art historians', Giorgio Vasari, seems to have originally been meant as a compliment.
3. FWIW, the idea of Bruegel as a 'second Bosch', mentioned by one of the first recognized 'art historians', Giorgio Vasari, seems to have originally been meant as a compliment.