Bosch: C. 1450-1516: Between Heaven and Hell (Basic Art Series)

Love this book. Surreal. Beautifully printed and definitely one for the person who recognises the genius and power of art.

Art is a very tricky thing to review because everyone has there own taste and lets face it Bosch is unlike anything I have ever seen. Far far away from artists like Rembrandt, Botticelli or anything you could call Beautiful. BUT my opinion is Bosch is without a fact artists MARMITE e.g You are going to love what you see and be absolutely fascinated. Or be shocked, disgusted and truly believe Bosch must of been a very unusual man to say the very least.As for myself ( someone who enjoys Rembrandt, Botticelli, Goya and Caravaggio ) I find him bloody fascinating.His masterpiece is without doubt The Garden Of Earthly Delights. A piece of work studied, argued and examined for around 500 years.With Taschen selling there beautiful books for around £10 I would recommend you buy this book. You can then make up your own mind.There are a fair amount of books on Bosch, hopefully you will go on to buy the even larger Taschen on sale from Amazon. But this 90+ page book is a must for any art fan. Even though it is somewhat...........Different.

Gift for my husband and he was very happy with it.

I'm very pleased with this book. Gives a great overview of Bosch's work and for a great price!

Great picture quality in Taschen books

great introduction to the artist's works. really nice quality and quick delivery. Bosh works are crazy and intriguing. I think he was bonkers! love it!

Slightly smaller than A4 in size, this book contains about 40 colour pictures from across Bosch's works, including those of uncertain attribution. Most occupy a full page. The triptychs, unfortunately, are printed across two, so some of the image is lost in the gutter. There are also a few smaller, black-and-white images of sketches and related works. All of the prints are of sufficient quality to bear inspection with a magnifying glass, which is often necessary to appreciate the detail.The accompanying text is surprisingly comprehensive. It provides an account of Bosch's life (what little is known) and provides a commentary on his paintings. Most significantly, it provides a guide to decoding the complex symbolism, at least to some extent. Competing interpretations are presented, even including one described as "scholarly nonsense".More pictures showing details of the large works would have been good, and the gutters are a problem, but this is a good introduction to Bosch.

Just the thing for me, having seen some of Bosch's work in the Prado, I wanted to learn more and this was just perfect.

awesome

The book came with one corner crushed. It is a pity. They could have paid attention, this book is about enjoying the looks. Size of the book is ok.

Bosch is a great painter but this book was put together poorly, in a very uninspiring manner. The reproductions are bearable, but the choice of works is poor. Even his greatest masterpiece about the earthly desires is not enjoyable since the middle of the picture is right where the spine of the book is. There are no close ups, many significant works were left out and so on. The only positive thing about it is the text. Taschen is a great publisher, don't get me wrong, a have plenty of Basic Art Series books, they are all great, but this one simply doesn't make me want to return to it, there is nothing about it that would repeatedly attract my attention. So it doesn't do justice to this magnificent artist at all. There is another Bosch book by Taschen, The Complete Works. Now that one might be a good catch, so go for it, forget about this one, it is not worth the money.

Tout petit livre attention gros arnaque !!!!!! J'ai demandé le remboursementJe pensais avoir le grand livre relié'vue chez Taschen à la boutique.

Beware, Mr. Taschen aims to hook the masses on art. If you are allegric, or have an embedded resistance to art, or feel it's a superfluous pursuit, you probably will be strong enogh to resist this perpetual campaign. If not, you might succumb, especially because the 2.0 -- newly revised -- Basic Art series, now in hardcover, is irresistible. The art direction, paper stock, and content are superb. Granted, no subject worth its weight in salt can be adequately covered in less than a 100 pgs., but, accepting that limittion, these are exceptional works.That's especially true for Bosch, since his output -- art that's been certifiably acknowledged -- is relatively limited. Bosing does a reasonably good job of making sense of a rather enigmatic figure. Were the orgies prescriptive or antinomian exercises? The books sets the record straight."The Last Judgement" -- accepted by most but not all scholars as being authentically Bosch -- is the pictorial sine qua non of the grand deterent, Hell, first presented in Plato's "Republic." Oh, how life was simpler when the masses were convinced of acting decently because of the fear of hell!If you long for the days when the amygdala cringed because of the threat of eternal damnation, then this is your artist. Here are the iconographic records of a transitional stage between Middle-Age Oppression and Renaissance liberation. Enjoy.