Bosch, Hieronymus

Early Dutch painter. His fantastic visions, often filled with bizarre and cruel images, depict a sinful world in which people are tormented by demons and weird creatures, as in Hell, a panel from the triptych The Garden of Earthly Delights (c. 1505–10; Prado, Madrid). In their richness, complexity, and sheer strangeness, his pictures foreshadow surrealism.

Bosch is named after his birthplace, 's-Hertogenbosch, in North Brabant, the Netherlands. His work, which strongly influenced Brueghel the Elder, may have been inspired by a local religious brotherhood. However, he seems to have been an orthodox Catholic and a prosperous painter, not a heretic, as was once believed. His work was collected by Philip II of Spain, who shared Bosch's dark vision of the world.