Twentieth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

In societies that have been experiencing rapid changes during the 21st century many scholars believe that human existence in its current form is ephemeral and constantly evolving, while quite a lot post-humanist theories about the course of humanity have already begun to be confirmed. In the late 15th & early 16th centuries, a painter named Hieronymus Bosch who lived in Flanders, Netherlands, was truly one of the most notable representatives of the Early Netherlandish Painting school. He was widely known as an artist who designs monsters and chimeras as his works had a transcendental dimension. Hieronymus Bosch was a true pioneer; He envisioned the world giving his own personal mark on the course of mankind. The Garden of Earthly Delights - one of his most acclaimed works - presents quite familiar images in the eyes of a contemporary viewer, images of the future that were actually created in the past, at the end of the Middle Ages. The contemporary look of the artist ranks him among the first post-humanists of mankind, as - through his illustrations - he managed to give some prophetic signs regarding the progress of the human world. Looking closely at his triptych, someone feels like being in a time machine, almost forgetting that we are talking about an artist of the 15th - 16th century. Inspired by the religious teaching of the day about Paradise and Hell, Hieronymus Bosch, through his artistic ingeniousness challenges the viewer to see a version of himself in the future.