Hieronymus Bosch (c.1450-1516), one of the major artists of the Northern Renaissance, had a seemingly inexhaustible imagination. Known as the creator of disturbing demons and spectacular hellscapes, he also painted the Garden of Earthly Delights, where gleeful naked folk feast on giant strawberries in a fantastic paradise garden. Little is known of Bosch's life or the circumstances underlying this famous painting, and his art has remained enigmatic, variously interpreted as the hallucinations of a madman or the secret language of a heretical sect.
This lecture presents Bosch as a man of his time, knowledgeable about the latest techniques of painting, active in the religious life of his community, and conversant with the intellectual developments of his day. It draws upon the Renaissance science of alchemy, the ancestor of modern chemistry, to elucidate the meanings of Bosch’s elusive imagery.

Laurinda Dixon is a specialist in northern European Renaissance art. Currently retired, she served as the William F. Tolley Distinguished Professor of Teaching in the Humanities at Syracuse University for many years. Her scholarship considers the intersection of art and science – particularly alchemy, medicine, astrology, and music – from the fifteenth though the nineteenth centuries. She has lectured widely in both the USA and Europe, and is the author of many articles, reviews, and eleven books, including Perilous Chastity: Women and Illness in Pre-Enlightenment Art and Medicine (1995), Bosch (2003), and The Dark Side of Genius: The Melancholic Persona in Art, ca. 1500-1700 (2013). Laurinda holds a Ph.D. in art history from Boston University, as well as a degree in piano performance from the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music. She currently resides in Cincinnati, Ohio.