BOSCH, hos, Hieronymus, Dutch painter: b. S'Hertogenbosch, Brabant, about 1450; d. 1516. His name is often given as Hieronymus van Aeken, which probably means that his family came from Achen (Aix-la-Chapelle). The painter's residence, at least for many years, was S'Hertogenbosch (Bois-le-Duc), Brabant. We have in the register of a re ligious brotherhood of that city a few dated references to the artist, which, with some few records of pictures ordered from him by various patrons, is all that we possess as his torically certain material about Bosch. The fact that numbers of his works went to Spain at an early period brought about the idea that the painter himself lived there. (At the Escurial we still find his (Paradise,' the 'Seven Capital Sins' and three other works, and at the Prado, Madrid, (The Adoration of the Kings) and 'The Fall of the Rebel Angels)). No docu mentary confirmation of the theory exists how ever, and the birthplace, schooling and in fact the whole life history of Bosch remain a mystery. That he merits a high rating as a creative artist will be evident if we consider the art of the Low Countries at this time. In the neighboring cities of Belgium, painting had, to be sure, reached a marvelous technical de velopment — which the Dutch were far from equaling. Bosch was one of the first men across the border to reach anything like the level of the Flemings, and at his best he ap proaches them quite nearly. It is perfectly safe to say that a born painter like Pieter Brueghel would never have studied Bosch as he did if the latter's beautiful art had not been used to embody his wild fancies. It is for these,
however, that he is most remembered and there is not, in the range of European art, a more teeming imagination, a more astonishing in ventiveness and fancy than that of the painter of the scenes of 'Heaven and Hell,' 'the Last Judgment' (Vienna Academy), the (Garden of Pleasures) and the various of Saint Anthony.' In the former royal palace, Ayuda, Lisbon, is his well-known 'Temptation of Saint Anthony,' the most copied of all his pictures. The museum of Princeton University possesses his before Pilate.) When he approaches religious subjects like the 'Martyr dom of Saint Julia' at Vienna, it is with a beautiful and naive sincerity which makes them impressive. The landscape which he loves to introduce into his work shows the true Dutch affection for nature. As a technician, an imaginer and an expresser of national feeling Bosch adds to his own excellence the quality of the forerunner as is proved by many copies of his works made during his lifetime or soon after. The engravings after his works, for merly believed to be by Bosch himself, are now accredited to other hands. Paintings by Bosch are hung in galleries of Brussels, Berlin, Lisbon, Naples, Antwerp and New York. Con sult Schubert, Soldern, 'Hieronymus Bosch and Pieter Brengel' (Vienna 1903); and 'Von Jan van Eyck bis Hieronymus Bosch) (Strass burg 1903); and Gossart, (Lille 1907).