The King of Surrealism
Detail of Garden of Earthly Delights
By Madame Lazonga
I decided it was time for us to have a discussion about art history, specifically surrealism, which I am finding more and more prevalent in the tattoos and artwork of today. Indulge me a minute, so I can get us all on the same page.
Surrealism is a movement in literature and the visual arts that developed in the mid-1920s and remained strong until the mid-1940s, growing out of Dada and automatism. Based upon revealing the unconscious mind in dream images, the irrational and the fantastic, Surrealism took two directions: representational and abstract. Dali’s and Magritte’s paintings, with their uses of impossible combinations of objects depicted in realistic detail, typify representational Surrealism. It is often marked with the use of abstract and fantastic shapes, and vaguely defined creatures are typical of abstract Surrealism. Now, most scholars mark the 1920s as its inception, but I want to go back even further and discuss and artist I think is really the King of Surrealism.
Jheronymus Bosch came into this world named Jeroen van Aken. Even though he was a very prolific artist and has had many a scholar probing and prying into his history, not very much is know about his life. He, at some point, changed his name and from then on he signed most of his paintings in large letters: JHERONIMUS BOSCH. His birth date is not really known, but it is thought to be between 1450 and 1453. He died in 1516. Bosch lived in a small town called Hertogenbosch in the Neatherlands, where he spent most of his life. Around 1480, Bosch registered as a painter and, in 1481, married a wealthy woman of the town and subsequently started getting commissions from the church to do religious paintings.
It is quite amazing how he literally put Hertogenbosch on the map. His hometown was just a small manufacturing town specializing in cloth and metal. During that time, the closest cities of art and culture were Bruges, Louvain and Tournai and were considered very far away from where he lived. For anything that creative to come from such a small town so remote from any artistic influences was quite a phenomenon. Maybe the remoteness from the main centers of art was a blessing, because his work was so unlike anything that had ever been done before and, I think, even after. No one had ever dared to render the fantastic, melding and blending of animal, human, machinery and vegetable parts used in allegory to stir up the complacent worn out dogma of the church, at that time.
Garden of Earthly Delights Central Panel of the Triptych
Before Bosch’s time, in the 14th century, an artist could make a good living if he was proficient in painting illuminated manuscripts. What was just an ornamental letter at the beginning of a page in the 1300s became full pages of illuminated text by the 1400s. The art that was popular during the beginning of the 15th Century revolved around religious scenes and scenes of everyday people going about their business, such as the famous Book of Hours. We must take these forms of the art world into consideration when looking at Bosch and how he was a kind of maverick. Bosch differed from his contemporaries by transforming the entire subject matter. He was no longer dependent on the descriptions in the Bible or the apocalyptic literature of the time.
Portrait of Bosch by Joques Le Bouqu c. 1555
One of the underlying themes in Bosch’s work is the punishment one might face in the afterlife was actually happening here and now. There always seems to be something gone askew, the earth is in some kind of a destructive state, while surrounding the cataclysms is a land that is complacent, peaceful, oblivious to horror, really heralding the representational surrealism of the 1920s. Bosch blended painting allegory and realism with his own consciousness, thus transforming art for all time. Bosch truly helped plant the initial seeds of growth necessary for the Reformation to take place, all of which paved the way for Martin Luther and the religious movements that changed Christianity forever. The 1400s were the slow building years that took us from the medieval world into the Renaissance.
The Last Judgment, man beingeaten by monster
The Renaissance also heralded in the guilds. These guilds were the only official way one could learn a craft, whether it be metal smithing or sculpture or painting. The training was long, rigorous and made up of sequential steps, just like a tattooing apprenticeship should be. Once accepted into the guild, the guild always monitored the work and practices of its members. Don’t we wish it were like that today, without the government trying to exploit us?
The Last Judgment, fragment of Hell
Bosch was truly a visionary. He did not know the future but, of course, his imagination could portray the destructive power of machines, or the machines to come. No one before him dared to paint the human condition the way he depicted it: hope, greed, lust, scandal, torture and ironies that surpass time. It is true that there was visible evidence of fear of the devil, demons and witchcraft that obsessed the people of that day, but Bosch’s understanding of their sources in scripture, mystical texts and hermetic grimoires proves an understanding of uncommon proportions.
St. John the Evangelist on Patmos 1504-1505
After all this, you are probably wondering what Bosch has to do with tattooing today? I think one of the underlying currents is that tattooing is art and the art of Bosch is very relevant to us, especially with regard to subject matter. Studying the masters is a great benefit to any person who wants to evolve as an artist. I think that this evolution is the difference between a tattoo artist and a tattoo technician. I also think tattooing, like the art Bosch created, is a blending of talent, and discipline and seeing things as timeless, the ever evolving events that continuously repeats themselves—from Bosch, to the Renaissance, to the Surrealists, to all of it influencing modern tattooing. I’ve come to realize that each era becomes a dance of the times, like a poem or story unfolding. It’s the same human story told in an infinite amount of ways and it’s so great to have tattooing as a unique medium for telling that story today.
If you are interested in learning more about this great artist, pick up the book Bosch by Carl Linfert or check out
www.boschuniverse.org, which is a great site for Bosch information.
—Your sister in tattooing
Vyvyn
vyvyn@comcast.net
