A Dark Premonition

Hieronymus Bosch (c. 1450–1516) is the most enigmatic artist of Early Modern Age. Inventing monstrous creatures, grotesque ogres, and bizarre chimeras walking abroad between this world and netherworld, he visualized the vices and desires of mankind, the promises of paradise, and the horrors of hell like no painter before and after him. Carrying Bosch’s paintings in his mind and memory for 60 years, Dutch writer Cees Nooteboom describes his journeys to seven of them that he visited and studied in Lisbon, Madrid, Ghent, Rotterdam, and ‘s-Hertogenbosch, the painter’s hometown.