Tag Archives: Hieronymous Bosch

persistence of famine

Hunger and history have a long symbiosis. The first recorded famine occurred in Egypt in 3500 B.C.Since then, millions have died, and still die of starvation. Do people starve simply because there are too many of us as Parson Malthus … Continue reading

Posted in Art History/Antiquity/Anthropology, Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

the devil in the details

An evolving sense of the devil. In the world of Hieronymous Bosch, synonymous with Northern Renaissance painting where in spite of joys and diversions the known world, the worldview is permeated with tragedy, malevolence and the mysterious. But leaping from … Continue reading

Posted in Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

miracles of meager vitality

The obscurity of irrational laws. Among Hieronymous Bosch’s several known followers, or “school of” painters was Pieter Huys. Although his pictorial concoctions do not approach those of the master in hellish power and impact his Temptation of Saint Anthony does … Continue reading

Posted in Art History/Antiquity/Anthropology, Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

soul people: complex essence for the perplexed

If we go back to the Middle Ages, we enter a realm when reason was put into service of the miraculous, and science, as such, was half fantasy. There was little theorizing. Hieronymous Bosch’s Hell was painted in specific, minute … Continue reading

Posted in Art History/Antiquity/Anthropology, Feature Article | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

bruegel: discarding the idealized for commonplace

It can be said that Bosch and Bruegel are not much alike in effect. Bosch’s greatest work is calculated to give rise to shivers of spiritual terror linked to sexual excitement as the primal reflex among men. Bruegel’s horror of … Continue reading

Posted in Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

conditions of exile

“Pieter the Droll” was always thought of as a follower of Bosch, which is far less than half the story, or part of a complex narrative of tearing at a facade, peeling off concealment and questioning whether spiritual blackness had … Continue reading

Posted in Art History/Antiquity/Anthropology, Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion | Tagged , | Leave a comment

comfort of words

The comfort of words. Think the covert substitutions and mental projections to which they are subject.Climbing out of our universe, one rung at a time… “A name is a prison, God is free,” or so said the Greek poet Nikos … Continue reading

Posted in Art History/Antiquity/Anthropology, Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

return on investment: kabul estates

The problem with the concept of the word evil, is that it resembles a black hole, a field that stretches toward infinity. The world is short of many things, but the supply of evil-doers and their willingness to act is … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

consciousness III, IV, V, …

…Nothing will ever be as nice again, or as good, as it was when one was seventeen. The paradoxes and contradictions of the post-industrial “occupy” culture, the anti-one-percenters, is a kind of resignation and despair that so many pleasures are … Continue reading

Posted in Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

spinoza of supermarket street: keeping the rules?

Imperfection. Logic, and a strong dose of rationality dictates that God, according to the Jewish definition, is non existent, or at best, absent when needed most. Yet mixed with this certainty of doubt is often a personal belief, a sort … Continue reading

Posted in Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment