Delights: A Story of Hieronymus Bosch

Guy Colwell

Book cover for Delights: A Story of Hieronymus Bosch
Book cover for Delights: A Story of Hieronymus Bosch

Delights: A Story of Hieronymus Bosch

Delights: A Story of Hieronymus Bosch

Guy Colwell

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Description
In Guy Colwell's first full graphic novel in over 30 years, we see one painter, Colwell himself, consider another, Hieronymus Bosch, and the story behind the latter's most notable work told in sequential panels. The known details of Bosch's life, and the commissioning of his enormous triptych, "The Garden of Earthly Delights," are scant. Colwell takes the facts of Bosch's time and setting and constructs a tale of a man and artist torn equally among piety, creativity, and commerce.

In Colwell's version of Jheronimus van Aken (Bosch's real name), he is an artist paid well by local dukes to paint a vision of the world before the fall, but will the religious leaders of his village see it as celebrating God's creation, or fatally corrupted by sensuality? And what of the increasing numbers of young models needed to depict pre-apple innocence?

This imaginatively conceived graphic biography is Colwell's crowning achievement in a cartooning career, begun in the underground comix movement of the 1970s, and marked by risk-taking and political engagement. His drawing, rendering, and storytelling has never been as self-assured as in Delights.

Critical Reviews

Painter and underground cartoonist Colwell turns the commissioning of The Garden of Earthly Delights in late 15th-century Netherlands into an epochal struggle between faith and doubt, superstition and reason. ... a thought-provoking venture into a time when art had life-or-death consequences.-- "Publishers Weekly"

It's hard to think of a better pairing between artist and subject than Guy Colwell's new book, Delights: A Story of Hieronymus Bosch. ... If this book is the capstone to his on-and-off-again comics career, it's a fitting one.-- "Canon Zine"

An enlightening consideration of Bosch facing torments not far removed what's depicted in his painting. Colwell depicts an anguished craftsman being prodded beyond his comfort zone to create a work of genius, and his informed interpretation has a strength of its own.-- "The Slings & Arrows"

A masterclass in cartooning.-- "Four Color Apocalypse"

This book really engaged me, and really sold me, on the story of how Bosch's painting got made.-- "Living The Line"

Colwell tells a completely fictional account of how [Bosch's] weird and wonderful masterpiece The Garden of Earthly Delights might have come about. ... A truly delightful book.-- "Fortean Times"

Publishing Information

Publisher: Fantagraphics Books
Pub date: 2024-08-13
Length: 168 pages

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