About the Artist
Hieronymus Bosch (c.1450-1516) came from a family of artists that had its roots in the city of Aachen – and that is almost all that we know about his life. As for his work, it is known to have been highly regarded in his lifetime: paintings by Bosch figured in the collection of the Spanish king, Philip I. But what do they mean? Some have said that his visions of hell, with their portrayal of grotesque torments and sadistic monsters, are ironical or heretical, or else darkly comical. Others see his work more plausibly as an entirely pious and expression of the orthodox Christianity of the time: the paintings are graphic reminders of the consequences of sin. The Surrealists saw Bosch as a forerunner of their own creed, as an artist who explored the seething undercurrents of the human psyche armed only with brushes and oils.
About the Artwork
This painting is most likely a copy of a lost original by the great 15th-century Flemish master Hieronymus Bosch. It depicts a scene from the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus, in which Christ descends into Hell in the time between the crucifixion and the Resurrection, confronts Satan and his cohorts, and rescues Adam from the abyss. Christ is seen here arriving at the gates of Hell in his graveclothes, pushing down the heavy drawbridge with the standard of redemption. The scattered groups of fantastical demons seem as yet unaware of Christ’s presence, and are blithely going about the humdrum business of torturing the damned. All in all, it is a scene as surreal and unsettling as anything in Dali, a dreamscape born of the devout and fearful early-medieval imagination.