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Sunday, November 04, 2007

All Saints and The Last Coyote

Hieronymus Bosch (c. 1450 – August 9, 1516)
Ascent of the Blessed 1500-1504
Oil on panel, 87 x 40 cm
Venice, Palazzo Ducale



Many of the works of Hieronymus Bosch, (his real name Jeroen van Aken) (c. 1450 – August 9, 1516) depict sin and human moral failings. Bosch used images of demons, half-human animals and machines to evoke fear and confusion to portray the evil of man.

But in this painting Ascent of the Blessed made sometime after 1490, he depicts something more sublime. The blessed approach that final and perpetual union of the soul with God which is experienced on earth only in rare moments of spiritual exaltation. It is currently in the Palazzo Ducale, in Venice, Italy.

This painting is part of a series of four, the others are Terrestrial Paradise, Fall of the Damned and Hell.

In his book, The Last Coyote, Michael Connolly mentions the painting as being depicted on a postcard sent to his detective hero, Hieronymus Bosch.


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