Sorry, I'm sort of on the go so I have not had time to read and consider all of your latest post, but ... you HATE Broadway Boogie-Woogie?
:eek6:
Doh!
It may be that you have to live in New York City, as I do, to get it.
Anyway, keep up the good work, and don't let the plonkers get you down! ;)
Great stuff on Hopper, stlukesguild. Thanks.
How's Cioran today? Can you explain why you like Broadway Boogie Woogie? I know I'm not on ignore. Be honest to yourself.
St Luke, can you comment on my reading of your Noli Me Tangere? Like my formalist analysis of your work's title. Thanks.
Thanks for sharing examples of your work. A couple years back you shared Temptation on the Let out the artist thread (posts 473 and 476) along with a blog entry. Temptation is very similar to Tyger, Tyger and Noli me tangere, are they part of a more extensive series on a theme?Quote:
Originally Posted by stlukesguild
I’m drawn more to your collage works, with the use of old envelopes, inclusion of postage stamps, the overall geometrical composition and proportions are pleasing, “comfortable”. They appeal to my architectural eye.
Happy New Year in art
I took a moment to see what 2013 has to offer as it pertains to upcoming local museum exhibits.
One exhibit that I already had my sights on from last year, is the “Bernini Sculpting in Clay” coming to the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth this February.
The Bernini exhibit is an absolute must for me. I was fortunate enough to have had the opportunity to see many of his sculptures in the flesh when visiting Rome on two occasions. The exhibit will feature 49 of his clay and terracotta study models as well as several of his drawings.
https://www.kimbellart.org/exhibitio...sculpting-clay
Fountain of the Four Rivers at Piazza Novona (1988):
http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/a...20-R02-187.jpg
^Note: the lion at the bottom of the tree just above the water, now look at the museum link above and the photo of Bernini’s clay study for the lion. Btw that is St. Agnes church in background left.
In addition to the Bernini exhibit, the Kimbell will also host “Wari: Lords of the Ancient Andes” and “The Age of Picasso and Matisse: Modern Masters from The Art Institute of Chicago”
https://www.kimbellart.org/exhibitio...-ancient-andes
https://www.kimbellart.org/exhibitio...titute-chicago
Speaking of the Kimbell, the museum expansion is slated to open late 2013. The expansion is designed by Italian architect Renzo Piano.
The Dallas Museum of Art is still showing “Posters of Paris: Toulouse-Lautrec and His Contemporaries.” See St. Lukes posting earlier on this thread (Post no. 6)
The exhibit ends January 20th, so I better hurry.
http://www.dallasmuseumofart.org/Vie...ons/dma_442782
Heading back to Fort Worth, I skimmed through the Amon Carter Museum of American Art website to see what’s cooking for 2013. I discovered the artist Romare Bearden and his upcoming exhibit with a literary connection; “A Black Odyssey”.
http://www.cartermuseum.org/exhibiti...-black-odyssey
I’m interested in seeing this one.
Sorry to bury your questions miyako73.....St. Lukes?, Cioran?...
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R e m i n d e r
Please do not personalise your arguments.
Off-topic and/or inflammatory posts will be removed without further notice.
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Cioran and St. Luke, do you find "Broadway Boogie Woogie" better, more beautiful, more briliant than this painting "Avenida Manila" that won a medal in Biennale Internazionale dell’ Arte Contemporonea Florence. The painting is a depiction of a street in Manila. I want to learn from you guys how you compare paintings with almost the same subject.
Attachment 8577
As most here probably know, I am an incurable bibliophile... nay, a biblio-maniac. I am writing these words from an office den that by most definitions is a decent small library. I am surrounded by several thousand books... at last count at least 3500. The book shelves are full. Books are stacked on top of these reaching to the ceiling. Books teeter and tower on the desk, on the tables, on top of the computer, and on the floor, turning the room into a labyrinth of the written word that J.L. Borges would surely understand. I became hooked on reading and books from a young age... and it was through books that I was first truly introduced to art.
The first book that I remember reading and wholly enjoying was Dr. Seuss' classic, Green Eggs and Ham. I have little doubt that I was as enthralled by the visual imagery as I was by the text:
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...gs-and-ham.jpg
Not long after, my brother received Dr. Seuss The Sleep Book for his birthday... a gift that taught me the meaning of "envy". The visual imagery of this book was even more fantastic... surreal, even (although I did not then know the term):
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...1c62801efc.jpg
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/..._Book_017f.jpg
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...reen2large.jpg
When I first stumbled upon Salvador Dali not too many years later, I could not help but recognize a similarity of visual language. This painting in particular, entitled Sleep, struck me as quite "Seussian" with the head balanced on stilts...
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/.../th_Dali-8.jpg
... an apt image of the tenuous nature of sleep and dreams.
Other books that ranked among my favorites due primarily to the art included Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are:
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...Things-Are.jpg
A good many years later I found that I was just as enthralled with Sendak's unique visual magic and fantasy when I attended his production of Mozart's Magic Flute:
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/.../th_003067.jpg
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...l287472811.jpg
as well as his contributions to Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas:
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/.../th_nmbc02.jpg
Both Seuss and Sendak inspired me and fueled me with a love of the fantastic. I am still far more enamored of the fantastic and the fabulous than I am of the realistic... in literature and art.
I was lucky enough to have inherited several older books from my grandparents that were illustrated with engravings or lithographs. Among these, I remember Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-glass...
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...hio/th_121.jpg
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...7qpo1_1280.jpg
Mother Goose...
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...0newy_0001.jpg
the whole Wizard of Oz cycle...
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...w-Oz-ch5-2.jpg
Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer...
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...ckfinn_1_e.jpg
the tales of Edgar Allan Poe...
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...RDCEAA4XOV.jpg
and the collected works of Shakespeare:
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...dPrint_100.jpg
I didn't get around to reading Shakespeare until later... the texts proved far too dense for me at the time... but the engraved illustrations were incredibly atmospheric and highly seductive. I still remember the image of Richard III's hired goons killing his young nephews as they slept.
As I approached adolescence, my tastes in illustration shifted toward comic books. I followed any number of comic book superheroes: Batman, Spiderman, Superman, Captain America, the Fantastic Four, etc...
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...man-flying.jpg
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...an-vs-zod2.jpg
I didn't know it at the time, but comic books had roots in some truly "serious" art. The graphic elements of the imagery, the page layouts, the shifting point of view and scale... even the narratives laden with superheroes undertaking impossible deeds, monsters, ghouls, ghosts, epic battles... all of these and more could be found in Japanese Ukiyo-e prints dating back to the 18th and 19th century.
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...o/th_K2620.jpg
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/..._actorspan.jpg
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...uniyoshi02.jpg
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...yoshi-Defy.jpg
Even if I had known about "serious art"... "fine art"... at the time, I doubt I would have been the least interested. This was a period dominated by Modernist abstraction. In actuality, the greatest draftsmen of the age were employed in illustration and comic books. Where the Baroque had Caravaggio and Rubens and Van Dyck painting grandiose oil paintings of Christian and Greco-Roman heroes and saints... the mid-20th century had Batman, Superman, and Wonder-Woman... drawn with all the Baroque love of the muscular body seen in dramatic action and from breathtaking points of view.
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...nd-700x545.png
Speaking of Wonder Woman... comic books also offered the adolescent boy, such as myself, the first real sexual fantasies... in the form of hot, scantily-clad women:
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...1books_600.jpg
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...bell_super.jpg
Along with the comic books of superheroes, I was also reading those that featured fantastic tales of aliens, monsters, ghouls, ghosts, and the like:
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...etales-097.jpg
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...etales-099.jpg
And then there were the more "underground" satirical comics ala MAD, Cracked, and Plop! These accompanied my first nascent adolescent steps toward teenage rebellion:
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...TmX-126039.jpg
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/.../th_Madhk1.jpg
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...lverton_cv.jpg
It was around this time that I discovered and became obsessed with my first real "fine artist", Salvador Dali. Dali was introduced to me by a young, female art teacher, just out of art school. He was like an unadulterated drug:
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...iled_beans.jpg
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...h_cannibal.jpg
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...memory1931.jpg
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...th_narciss.jpg
The guy could paint with the facility of any realist... but didn't waste his time on such boring crap. Instead he painted dream-like images of melting watches, ant invasions, elephants on stilts and giraffes on fire... bodies morphing into strange monsters and devouring themselves, bizarre illusions... and all the strange sexual imagery... Here was an artist any teenage boy could love.
I ran out and bought my first art book on Dali... and it was a magnificent and incredibly expensive book. At $100 it was a luxury item for me at the time... but worth every bit. The pages were gilt in gold leaf, the cover was also laden with gold and embossed, and the book weighed a ton... illustrated with the finest quality reproductions. I gloated over and gorged myself on that book... until I virtually knew every painting... intimately.
My obsession with Dali lasted perhaps a year... at least until I discovered Heironymus Bosch...
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8234/8...9231654f_n.jpg
If Dali was like an unadulterated drug... he was marijuana... where Bosch was pure crack cocaine or heroin. Nothing in Dali prepared me for this 15th century madman. To this day I would name the Garden of Earthly Delights as one of the ten... if not 5 greatest paintings ever. Dali's surreal imagery came from his private dreams and fantasies. Bosch' nightmares came from reality. He recognized that reality was as surreal, fantastic, absurd, and nightmarish as any fantasy or dream. I can think of no other painting that has so kept me enthralled... looking ever closer at all those unimaginable details... all the little dirty deeds...
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8094/8...01e4a400_n.jpg
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8470/8...4356bc29_n.jpg
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8493/8...7785b9f8_n.jpg
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8357/8...37aba9c8_n.jpg
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8211/8...647808c5_n.jpg
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8055/8...f73660b2_n.jpg
The symbolism is such in Bosch, that one could write entire volumes on just the Garden of Earthly Delights... and indeed, more than a few art historians have done just that.
And where the "Garden" leaves off, The Temptation of St. Anthony picks up:
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...StAnthony1.jpg
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...th_tempt-l.jpg
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...th_tempt-c.jpg
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...th_tempt-r.jpg
More than a few viewers have noted that Bosch' paintings suggest an almost frenzied LSD inspired vision... so it shouldn't come as a surprise that there may indeed be a link. St. Anthony, due to the tales of his visions, was considered the patron saint of the affliction known as "St. Anthony's Fire" or ergot poisoning caused by fungal infections of rye and other cereals which is then ingested. The symptoms include gangrene as a result of vasoconstriction induced by the ergotamine-ergocristine alkaloids of the fungus leading to poor circulation, loss of peripheral sensation, edema and ultimately the death (gangrene) and loss of affected tissues, painful seizures and spasms, diarrhea, itching, headaches, nausea and vomiting. The mental effects including mania or psychosis including LSD-like hallucinations.
Quote:
Originally posted by stlukesguild
Bosch' nightmares came from reality. He recognized that reality was as surreal, fantastic, absurd, and nightmarish as any fantasy or dream. I can think of no other painting that has so kept me enthralled... looking ever closer at all those unimaginable details... all the little dirty deeds...
I could not say that Bosch kept me “enthralled”. I have learned about Bosch by…… an accident as I searched books about Gnosticism. I have found Wilhelm Fraenger’s The Millenium of Hieronymus Bosch. I haven’t finished reading his book as Fraenger didn’t provide specific references so that I could verify the sources. His book didn’t even have bibliography.....perhaps, the publisher has forgotten. :D
I have found in Wikipedia about Fraenger.
Quote:
Wilhelm Fraenger (5 June 1890 in Erlangen – 19 February 1964 in Potsdam) was a German art historian.
Fraenger was a specialist in the epoch of the German Peasants' War and of the mysticism of the Late Middle Ages. He wrote important studies of Jerg Ratgeb, Matthias Grünewald and Hieronymus Bosch. His work on Bosch was very influential in its day and considered Bosch under the aspect of occultism, seeing Bosch as an artist guided by an esoteric mysticism. He maintained friendships with numerous artists and intellectuals, some stretching decades
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Fraenger
Occult (from the Latin word occultus "clandestine, hidden, secret) is "knowledge of the hidden" …bibliography or specific references, therefore, must be hidden. :lol:
Great post, StLukes. Interesting reading.
The last little bit reminded me of how I really need to go out and see more paintings in person. It truly changes the way you experience visual art.
Wilhelm Fraenger was more than a bit of a whacko... although his book on Bosch provided the first real look at his work in depth. I still have a copy myself. The Garden of Earthly Delights by the writer, Peter S. Beagle was far more useful. Beagle offered far more solid interpretations of Bosch' works based on the writings of mainstream art historians as well as his own observations and conclusions as an art lover and a writer. The book presents Bosch is a manner accessible to the non-art historian. The best book on Bosch available at present appears to be that by Larry Silver which is built more on solid research without the desire to prove some personal theory, which marred Fraenger's book. Fraenger assumed that the "heretical" details mocking the clergy proved that Bosch must have been a member of some heretical cult into the occult... but in all reality, Bosch's mockery of the clergy and the aristocracy are no different from that of Chaucer or many other artists and writers. Bosch had the added advantage that he did not need to sell his paintings. He had married one of the richest women in the county which provided him a degree of independence that left him free to paint as he wished.
SLG- I might note... that up to this point I had never been to an art museum nor seen a real painting of merit in reality. While I may have known that many paintings were far larger than they appeared in reproduction in books, having only seen them in this manner had a profound impact upon my perceptions of painting.
PM-The last little bit reminded me of how I really need to go out and see more paintings in person. It truly changes the way you experience visual art.
Yes... at this point, even though I knew that many of the paintings by the old masters that I was just then exploring were quite sizable... the dimensions were printed right there in the books... my actual experience... what I was seeing... was limited to book-scaled reproductions. As a result, all of my efforts at painting at the time might be termed as miniatures. I have little doubt that William Blake's work was marked by the fact that most of the artists he knew and admired he only knew through mechanical reproductions: engravings.
Vampirella... so strange they started to try to make her history as if she is not just an impossible walking swimsuit. Frank Frazetta art in black white was the best thing for cheap horror stuff.
Well, I would say that Bosch was a whacko. Therefore, you may be right that Wilhelm Fraenger was a whacko too……. for choosing to write about Bosch. :lol:Quote:
Originally posted by stlukesguild
Wilhelm Fraenger was more than a bit of a whacko... although his book on Bosch provided the first real look at his work in depth. I still have a copy myself. The Garden of Earthly Delights by the writer, Peter S. Beagle was far more useful. Beagle offered far more solid interpretations of Bosch' works based on the writings of mainstream art historians as well as his own observations and conclusions as an art lover and a writer. The book presents Bosch is a manner accessible to the non-art historian. The best book on Bosch available at present appears to be that by Larry Silver which is built more on solid research without the desire to prove some personal theory, which marred Fraenger's book. Fraenger assumed that the "heretical" details mocking the clergy proved that Bosch must have been a member of some heretical cult into the occult... but in all reality, Bosch's mockery of the clergy and the aristocracy are no different from that of Chaucer or many other artists and writers. Bosch had the added advantage that he did not need to sell his paintings. He had married one of the richest women in the county which provided him a degree of independence that left him free to paint as he wished.
Second, I don't understand how you can say that Fraenger "provided the first real look at his work in depth". It is a work of pseudo scholar who didn't provide specific references and bibliography.
I wouldn’t waste my time to read others interpretations of his art. As I said, it was by an accident that I discovered his paintings.
It is interesting, St Lukes, that, separated as we are by thousands of miles and from similar but different cultures, that we share a good number of pictorial influences. I don't mean to suggest I'm an artist, or even cultured, but I recognise many of those references you made from my own childhood.
Dr Suess books were coveted in my first class - we had The Cat in the Hat - and the kids would rush to be the first to get that book. It was the same with Green Eggs and Ham later. Mother Goose, Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer were all there, and I really loved the marvel comics and read them over and over when I could afford them. Mad was there too, but I always went for the X-Men or Dr Strange. I came across Bosch and, in my teens, a friend introduced me to Dali, though I have to say I had barely an artistic or appreciative bone in my body at that time.
Interesting post.
Around the time of my discovery of Bosch I began to make something of a systematic exploration of art history on my own. Today this would have been so much more easy with access to the internet, Wikipedia, and literally millions of works of art available in reproductions on-line. Back then I relied on the small library in the small town in which I lived, as well as those in the towns immediately surrounding. Newsweek had published this great series on the major museums around the world: the Louvre, the National Gallery London, the Hermitage, the Prado, the Uffizi, the Met, etc... These presented the artists by nationality and chronologically. I also began to pick up monographs on artist who really caught my attention.
Being so floored by Bosch, I began to look around for something similar and I rapidly stumbled on Pieter Bruegel (Brueghel) the Elder. Brueghel began his career as something of an heir to Bosch. This was especially true of his engravings which employed similar themes and imagery:
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/..._-_WGA3537.jpg
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...-_Gluttony.jpg
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...jjio1_1280.jpg
Like Bosch, Brueghel presented landscapes that were teeming with tiny figures... often engaged in all sorts of dirty deed... all laden in symbolism and allegory. The meaning of Big Fish Eat Smaller Fish is not too difficult to discern but prints such as Christ in Limbo (the Harrowing of Hell) and Gluttony from the series on The Seven Deadly Vices are full of bizarre Bosch-like details that leave the viewer puzzling for hours.
Brueghel also produced a number of paintings that following in the fantastic tradition of Bosch. Among my favorites are The Fall of the Rebel Angels:
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...bel-angels.jpg
As the Rebel Angels are driven from heaven by those Angels loyal to God, they already have begun to metamorphose into strange creatures... amphibians, fish, one toad-like creature that opens his own belly to reveal his guts and eggs... and another fallen angel... the most beautiful... perhaps Lucifer himself... is blessed with the lovely wings of a butterfly. As with the "Hell" panel of Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights the viewer can virtually hear the cacophonous noise of this scene as the battle is accompanied by yelling, howling, horns blaring and bleating, the drone of a hurdy-gurdy, and the pluck of various stringed instruments. Of course Bosch takes this even further, transforming the instruments that in earthly life were the source of profane and lurid music, into the very means of torture for sinners in his hellish orchestra.
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8515/8...f57e921e_n.jpg
Another favorite painting by Brueghel in the tradition of Bosch is the painting entitled Dulle Griet (or "Mad Meg"). The painting portrays a tale from Flemish folklore of a woman so driven by desire for riches that she leads an army of women in a raid on hell itself. The painting is an obvious comment on the sin of avarice.
Perhaps the greatest of Brueghel's paintings in the realm of Bosch-inspired fantasy is the harrowing Triumph of Death. In this painting, death is unrelenting and unforgiving. He shows no mercy and no concern for age, wealth, or rank. Women, children, kings, knights, Popes, court jesters, musicians, mothers, lovers... death comes for all... and all are ferried away to the scorched landscape of the dead.
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...th_death-1.jpg
Brueghel, however, worked with a broader range than Bosch. He was no mere follower of Bosch. Along with Bosch, he established the tradition of Netherlandish landscape painting with his God's eye view of the natural world. Brueghel's landscapes exhibit an acute observation of the details of the real world that is astounding. These were clearly the result of endless life studies... some of which have survived.
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...ng_bruegel.jpg
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...jjio1_1280.jpg
Brueghel's study of beekeepers presents an almost "surreal" image... wholly rooted in reality. In spite of the fact that the Netherlandish painters lacked the formal understanding of anatomy, physiology, and perspective that the Italian masters such as Michelangelo, Raphael, Leonardo, etc... displayed, Brueghel still exhibits an unprecedented grasp of foreshortening, the body seen in a broad array of poses... at work and at play... and the illusion of receding space as conveyed through scale and aerial perspective.
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...Gloomy_Day.jpg
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...Harvesters.jpg
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/..._hunters-1.jpg
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...aking-1565.jpg
Nor has any artist surpassed Brueghel in his ability to capture not only the details of the landscape... but the sense of atmosphere and color. The teal-pewter-gray sky and the black figures isolated against the stark white snow in Hunters in the Snow perfectly conveys the frozen atmosphere of February. In the painting The Harvesters/August one can literally feel the heavy oppressive humid atmosphere that has led a number of the farm-workers to collapse with exhaustion. In Haymaking/July(?) we are presented with a glorious summer day. I have always thought it appears more like June than July. The weather is not yet too hot as conveyed by the cool colors, the clothing, and the attitudes of the laborers. While hay is gathered in the fields, girls haul baskets of fruit... berries and cherries... off to market.
Peter Paul Rubens, who would become the greatest Flemish painter, and the artist perhaps most instrumental in the development of the genre of the landscape... especially in France and England... was a great admirer of Brueghel. Indeed, he owned several of Brueghel's paintings and was a close friend and co-worker with Brueghel's son, Jan. Rubens made a study after the three farm girls in Brueghel's Haymaking (which unfortunately I cannot find online)...
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/.../th_14july.jpg
... and other elements of Brueghel's landscapes pop up again and again in the later artist's work:
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...h_rubens01.jpg
One of my absolute favorite paintings by Brueghel is the so-called Netherlandish Proverbs:
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...h_proverbs.jpg
At first glance, the painting is a realistic view of the comings and goings in a small Netherlandish village... although some of the things being carried out appear a bit strange. Nearly every last detail in the painting, however, is a literal representation of then-commonly-known proverbs: "He has an eel by the tail" (Akin to our "tiger by the tail". "She holds fire in one hand and water in the other" (She blows hot and cold). "One must crawl to make one's way through the world." "He has the world balanced on the tip of his thumb" (In the palm of his hand). "he runs his head against a brick wall." "Their so close they s*** from out of the same hole." The meanings of many of these proverbs are still recognizable today.
One of the most intriguing of Brueghel's paintings was his last, Magpie on the Gallows:
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...The_Gallow.jpg
Gallows were a common site in the war-torn Netherlands as they struggled against oppressive Spanish rule. But here we have the gallows in the most beautiful... even idyllic of landscapes. Beneath it peasants dance joyfully. Clearly the painting suggest the co-existence of life and death. Like Poussin's painting "Et in Arcadia ego"... even in paradise we shall find death...
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...arcadie_ii.jpg
The fact that Brueghel left this one painting to his wife in his will has led others to surmise that the image of the magpie (a symbol of gossip) on the gallows was something of a warning to his wife against excessive loose talk after he was gone.
St. Luke,
I am curious where you found that Brueghel was inspired by Bosch’s paintings. Did Brueghel say that Bosch was his inspiration?
Well, I would say that Bosch was a whacko. Therefore, you may be right that Wilhelm Fraenger was a whacko too……. for choosing to write about Bosch.
Bosch is acknowledged as one of the greatest artists of the Renaissance and one of the key figures in the development of the Northern Renaissance. I don't see how electing to study and write about him could be deemed "whacko"... except by yourself.
Second, I don't understand how you can say that Fraenger "provided the first real look at his work in depth". It is a work of pseudo scholar who didn't provide specific references and bibliography.
Yes, Fraenger's book... or rather the common English translation doesn't include a separate bibliography according to modern/contemporary formal academic standards. However, the book includes an appendix of some 100+ pages with hundreds of citations and there are hundreds more citations throughout the text itself. Obviously, you have not read or even come across a complete copy of Fraenger's Heironymus Bosch.
I probably should not have termed Fraenger as a whacko. He is far from being a pseudo-scholar. He has far more legitimate claim to being a respected scholar of art history than either you or I. Fraenger began his studies of Art History at Studied at the University of Heidelberg in 1915. He was awarded a major prize by the university for his essay on 17th century art theory, and earned his Doctorate from Heidelberg in Art History in 1917. He dis further studies in France, Holland, and Switzerland and was appointed Library Director of Schlossbibliothek in Mannheim. Fraenger founded a group of academics opposed to certain aspects of "elitism" in the study of the arts, and in support of Progressive ideas in education. In 1927 Fraenger was forced out of power by Nazis due to his progressive views. The nazi's took an even more hostile view of his book of the German painter, Matthias Grünewald. After the war, Fraenger became active in politics and education, and was later appointed appointed director for the Center for German Folk Studies (Institut für deutsche Volkskunde), part of the German Academy of Sciences. His books on Bosch and Grünewald remain important Art Historical texts.
Fraenger's studies on Bosch are incredibly well-researched. Fraenger constructed an explanation of the artist's work based on his theory that Bosch belonged to a heretical group, the Adamites in 's-Hertogenbosch, which practiced many of the rites depicted in Bosch's paintings. The theory remained controversial and unaccepted by other Bosch scholars, including Charles de Tolnay.
I wouldn’t waste my time to read others interpretations of his art. As I said, it was by an accident that I discovered his paintings.
Yes... it's much easier to make up your own interpretations based on a complete lack of knowledge of the artist, his biography, the culture/society in which he worked, his artistic predecessors and sources of inspiration.