Hieronymus Bosch: Visions and Nightmares by Nils Büttner

Abstract

Reviewed by: Hieronymus Bosch: Visions and Nightmares by Nils Büttner Pamela Merrill Brekka Nils Büttner, Hieronymus Bosch: Visions and Nightmares ( London: Reaktion Books 2016) 208 pp., ill. An international host of publications and exhibitions have marked the quincentenary of Hieronymus Bosch's death in 1516, including the release in English of Nils Büttner's Hieronymus Bosch, originally published in German in 2012. While Büttner's self-described "history" of Bosch provides few revelations, it is nonetheless a welcome addition in English to the field literature. Putting to rest forever the traditional construct of Bosch the enigmatic, heretical proto-Surrealist, Büttner firmly situates the famous painter within his historical context. Hieronymus Bosch is convincingly articulated a successful artist and well-stationed member of his community, whose paintings were favored by the most conservative Catholic nobility of Europe. To counter any lingering speculations concerning Bosch's orthodoxy, Büttner rigorously promotes the artist as a mainstream Christian painter almost to the point of redundancy. Chapter 4 of the book is titled "From Christmas to Easter" and begins with a quote from Bosch's contemporary, Albrecht Dürer, in defense of painting as a justifiable artistic practice to be used primarily "in service of the Church." Providing this primary source (one assumes) to establish the social context of Europe circa 1500, Büttner reiterates the central claim of his book, that "Christ's birth, suffering and death occupy a central role in Bosch's oeuvre" (51). Most of this chapter is devoted to Büttner's discussion of Bosch's famous Adoration of the Magi in Madrid, better known as the Prado Epiphany. Here, Büttner seamlessly synthesizes widely accepted earlier research on this triptych (most welcome in any introductory survey), thus providing a mainstream interpretation of this work as keyed to the salvific mystery and readily understood by late Medieval Christian audiences. Indisputable in its content and details, this passage is nonetheless tired and rehearsed when compared, for example, to Debra Higgs Strickland's [End Page 194] magisterial treatment of the same subject also published this year (The Epiphany of Hieronymus Bosch: Imagining Antichrist and Others from the Middle Ages to the Reformation (2016)). The reader will admire Büttner's methodological rigor, which is, as he explains, "rooted in the practice of historical writing" (5). There are fifty known primary sources directly linked to Bosch, and Büttner surely employs them all. These period sources provide the critical framework for Büttner's "history", and are scrupulously woven throughout the narrative. Chapter 2 begins with the description of a lease payment made by Bosch and his kin. This source material provides a geospatial time signature used to culturally situate Hieronymus Bosch in 's-Hertogenbosch, which is the topic of this chapter. While one respects such scholarly vigilance and devotion to method, some passages, by result, feel defensive and are exhausting to read, including Büttner's too lengthy excursus highlighting in detail the limitations of Erwin Panofsky's "disguised symbolism." No one disputes Büttner's argument here; art historians settled this issue decades ago. By contrast, when primary sources could be used to support Büttner's iconographical claims, one wishes he handled them with more precision. He refers more than once to the "thorns and thistles" of Medieval Christian life as a metaphor for temptation and sin. He uses this biblical source to explain the plethora of weird apparatuses and strange plants found in Bosch's landscapes. The reader expects an elaboration of this important primary source—first, because he mentions it more than once, and second, to counter the traditional construct of Bosch the drug-using, hallucinating eccentric. If Büttner does in fact cite Genesis 3:18 (this reviewer could not find it) he nevertheless ignores the highly unusual gourd-shaped bird habitat blooming from the thorny, thistly vine he refers to. In other words, the primary source he by implication (but not overtly) uses to support his view of the ordinariness of Bosch's landscapes does not explain the inclusion of, for example, bizarre terrestrial foliage in the likeness of pumpkin-shaped birdhouses. Such loose application of primary source material is...