The artist Hieronymus Bosch probably had the most prodigious imagination
of his day. He was the great surrealist of the waning Middle Ages. His
paintings were both a promise and a threat, intended to convey an idea
of what would happen in paradise and, even more so, in hell. He created
labyrinths of atrocities and a vocabulary of the bestial. He depicted
devils and monsters, but also people being tortured, naked people whose
throats were being slit, almost as if they were part of a scene in the
latest propaganda video from the self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS). And
then there are images and motifs that seem comedic in their sheer
absurdity.
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