Jheronimus Bosch, Touched By The Devil 2015

The legendary Dutch artist Jheronimus Bosch is considered by many to be a precursor to surrealism, predating the 20th century art movement by several hundred years, while the surrealist master Salvador Dali once styled himself "the new Bosch". Bosch’s style of art is bizarre and wondrous, filled with strange creatures that symbolize human fear and desire. At present, there are only 25 extant Bosch paintings, including such masterpieces as Garden of Earthly Delights, Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last Things. Even though he painted few works, Bosch’s imagination was wide-reaching, encompassing heaven, hell and everything in between. His vision transcends time and space, inspiring countless modern artists. Bosch only signed some of his works but never dated them. Many art experts have long wondered which of the works attributed to him came from his workshop and which were painted by the master himself, or even posthumously painted in his name. Perhaps even some of the Bosch paintings in the Louvre and Prado museums are actually painted by his pupils? The team behind Jheronimus Bosch, Touched By The Devil followed a research team and travelled to the Netherlands, France, the United States and Spain to examine the surviving Bosch paintings. Using a variety of means including tree ring counting of the wooden frames and infrared technology, different layers of these works are revealed. Recreating the past with present knowledge, the film deciphers Bosch's world view to find specks of heaven within his depictions of hell.