Talk:The Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last Things

Unbalanced and single source tags

These templates are applied because the content of the article is composed mostly of theories taken from one publication on Bosch, improperly sourced at that. JNW (talk) 01:15, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Removed material in violation of WP:NPOV per above...Modernist (talk) 14:52, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

File:Hieronymus Bosch- The Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last Things.JPG to appear as POTD soon

Hello! This is a note to let the editors of this article know that File:Hieronymus Bosch- The Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last Things.JPG will be appearing as picture of the day on November 19, 2015. You can view and edit the POTD blurb at Template:POTD/2015-11-19. If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 01:54, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

Picture of the day

The Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last Things is a painting attributed to Hieronymus Bosch, completed around 1500 or later. Presented in a series of circular images: four small circles, detailing "Death of the Sinner," "Judgment", "Hell", and "Glory", surround a single large circle showing the seven deadly sins. At the center of this circle is Jesus emerging from his tomb. The painting is now held by the Museo del Prado in Madrid.Painting: Hieronymus Bosch

Hoffman

Sorry MWAK, but I removed Hoffman's theory. All his observations on style and originality are old, copied from others. New is that he concludes from these observations that the painter probably copied an original Bosch but made (many) changes in it. If you want you can add that single suggestion, but to me it sounds so silly - as so many other theories - that I should leave it out for the moment. Should the BRCP come up with similar suggestions in January, which I strongly doubt, than you can give Hofman back his rightful place as being the first to suggest this.Bosch2016 (talk) 19:09, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

Hoffman's article is on line: http://bossche-encyclopedie.nl/publicaties/bossche%20bladen/pdf/2005-3Hoffman.pdf I just read it and indeed it is oly a summary of methods used by authors to "identify" a "real bosch." There is nothing new in the article and the author doesn't have the pretention to tell anything new, except, perhaps, at the end of his article, where he writes (in Dutch): "This follower [i.e. the "discipulo"] must have had an example he had in mind of course." This is pure, bad speculation based on nothing but prejudice. Why shouldn't a follower be able to make his own inventions? In principle Wiki is not there to judge opinions, but a certain selection is essential and this one does not qualify to be mentioned, at least for the moment.Bosch2016 (talk) 22:46, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

It might be discarded on WP:Undue Weight grounds, but the advantage of the citation (and the main reason I inserted it) is indeed that it contains little new but nicely sums up the arguments of previous authors. Such a structured analysis is now largely lacking. The "awkward drawing and execution" and "the painting was not on oak" are referred to without them being properly introduced and discussed. It might be a good idea to carefully summarise the argumentation by Vermet and Vandenbroeck.

By the way, in defence of Hoffman I should say that his hypothesis was presented in a very tentative way. Also, the situation that a painting exists, the composition of which might well be by Bosch while at the same time he clearly didn't paint it himself, can be very parsimoniously explained by that painting being a copy, especially as it was common practice to copy important works. Most parsimonious explanations are false despite the parsimony, of course, but calling it "silly" is a bit harsh ;o).--MWAK (talk) 09:45, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

You're right silly is perhaps too harsh, but it reminded me of Vermet's commentary of Elsig's dating of the Haywain (a copy by Bosch of his own invention, imitating the style of the original he painted 20 years earlier (published here: Online). Hoffman's article and book are not bad. Before changing anything I am going tonight to the idfa to see the documentary (see my talk at the Ghent Carrying of the Cross page) Bosch2016 (talk) 10:53, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

Enjoy yourself and take notes ;o).--MWAK (talk) 14:10, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

Been there. Most enjoyable, but disappointing when you were hoping for anything about the outcome of the new research. See my comment under the Ghent Carrying talk.Bosch2016 (talk) 21:14, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

In that case, I'd like to invite you to add a little list of the pros and cons by the respective authors. No doubt, you are much better acquainted with the sources than I am :o).--MWAK (talk) 15:03, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

OK, I'll try next week.Bosch2016 (talk) 13:44, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

It has become clear that the Bosch research project was not allowed to fully study the painting. Until the Prado makes public its findings, I'll reinsert the Hoffman summation of previous research.--MWAK (talk) 15:45, 16 February 2016 (UTC)