Inspiration from Artists Week 81 : Bonus Artist HIERONYMUS BOSCH

I took a look at the Wikipedia entry on Bosch, and several linked scholarly articles.   I really don't think I'm much wiser - I was of course quite wrong about any suggestion of Flemish Protestantism, I got the whole dateline wrong!  I also assumed - just picture my abasement - that Brueghel preceded him; t'was the other way around.   I think I'll consult my bookshelves rather than Google - although this is just a matter of selection: there's good stuff on Google, IF you look in the right place.  He's still a puzzle, though - in my eyes and consciousness at least: I must presume that the population at the time, and critics - such as they were: they'd have been priests for the most part, not interested so much in the aesthetics as in the possibilities of blasphemy - understood the visual language he was using.  I don't - it's a world away.   That's interesting, too: e.g. what CAN we understand of the motives and thoughts of our ancestors, even within the space of 500 years, never mind 5,000?   If we can't understand Bosch, and I certainly can't, how are we to hope to understand those of our ancestors who lived in caves and had no written language?   I don't know - well, THAT'S obvious! - if the world contemporary to Bosch understood him either: was there an explicable language of symbols that people recognized?  No: I said I was out of my depth, and I'm now gurgling and spluttering in even deeper waters.  It's time for Dr Sally Bulgin to intervene on the Forum: I have met my match, I have been outclassed and bested.  

I think the problem is that we know so little about him and so fill the huge gaps with speculation. The bizarre pictures are well known but did he paint anything else, and if so was it more 'normal'? I simply don't know. I have found this one, The Crucifixion of St Julia, which is not particularly odd (although personally I detest pictures like this with a passion!)

The paintings seem too well planned for someone off their head. I found this https://www.artandobject.com/slideshows/7-strange-details-hieronymus-bosch-paintings-explained I found it interesting.