While some generously speculative research in the 1940s attempted to link him to an heretical sex cult called the Adamites, and while the 1960s zeitgeist had him hallucinating on ergotic wheat, mainstream academic opinion offers a much tamer picture.
For all the singularity of his work, there is no evidence to suggest that Bosch was, in any sense, an outsider. Martens, keen to prop up their own countercultural cred, would want on their boots.īosch scholars, however, would leap to correct this. And the way ‘Boschian’ is used – nightmarish, monstrous, teemingly weird – perfectly fits the image of a marginal figure, at odds with the artistic norms of his time. The image of Bosch that still exerts such a strong grip on the popular imagination is that of a prototype outsider artist. Martens boots with his work printed on them.īut being widely known is not the same as being well known. He is a major draw at museums, but his reach extends far beyond: in addition to the standard books, T-shirts and postcards, he has been treated to accessories ranging from tote bags to mousepads and phone cases. On the quincentenary of his death, few, if any, of Hieronymus Bosch’s contemporaries can claim a similar level of continuing fame.
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