Hieronymus Bosch. Life and Work

What lies behind the grotesque, at times comical aesthetic of Hieronymus Bosch? What relation to his contemporary society did the artist express through his eccentric plots? What is it about Bosch's infernal Middle Ages that captivates us? Where did the... pregnant emperor come from on the canvas and why, finally, are owls - not what they seem? Answers to these intriguing questions can be found on the pages of this book, a deep and rich exploration of the work of the Dutch master. A legend of world painting, Bosch became famous not only as a talented draftsman but as a skilled mystifier, the inventor of his own pictorial language, in which the base intertwines with the elevated, the sinful is ruthlessly exposed, and the everyday and 'normal' are distorted in a macabre dance. To know Bosch is to glimpse into the consciousness of a medieval person, to understand what makes him laugh, what he fears, what he despises, and what he reveres. The key to the artist's intricate symbolism was discovered by Valeria Kasyakova - the author of the sensational book 'The Apocalypse of the Middle Ages', a candidate of cultural studies, a teacher at the Russian State University for the Humanities and an employee of the Center for Visual Studies of the Middle Ages and the Modern Era.