Friday, January 11, 2013

Another morosoph

Another portrait of a morosoph. Dick Heesen wrote a terribly flawed book about Hieronymus Bosch's "secret message", which teaches us absolutely nothing, as the author is not at all interested in the culture when Bosch was alive. He tries to explain every detail in the paintings by attaching bible quotes to them and phantasizes about secret codes refering to the corrupt Renaissance popes.

Frankly, it is just embarrassing that this piece of vanity press has been published by the Jheronimus Bosch Art Centre. The fact that Heesen was a wealthy businessman may have had something to do with how that got realised.

3 comments:

Human Mollusk said...

Another cool portrait, Marcel.

I always enjoy those kinds of cranky exegesis, on one hand just for the entertainmant value, but on the other hand they can tell us a lot about how we humans make sense of things (or try to at least), and how it can go horribly wrong. Did you see that christian guy's videos about the secret messages in Gangnam Style? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0bk3gsv1gA

Marcel Ruijters said...

That one is news to me, FuFu! However he fits the sterotype to a t. In fact, I am fiercely reminded of a hilarious comic my pal Jakob Klemencic did about a guy who spends all his time watching porn, hunting for clues of the Antichrist in the background.
In the past, i have done some portraits of people like Immanuel Velikowsky, but they're scattered. Could make a nice series...

alkbazz said...

funny (?) how it's easy to apply our own understanding onto others, while it seems really hard to majority to understand someone & his context