by W. E. Gutman
There was something familiar in Bosch’s recurring scenes of sadism, the deadpan expressions of the evil-doers, the crushing sadness, the stunned fatalism in their quarries’ faces. Familiar and terrifying. I would relive many heretofore repressed moments every time I gazed at his weird and often gruesome renderings of life and death. Captured through the prism of his age, his metaphors, I would realize, were ageless; their message was universal.
As far as I know, Hieronymus Bosch, who lashed out at superstition, not faith, is the only painter who had the genius and the temerity to juxtapose man’s bestiality and the clergy’s ceremonious stupor in the face of colossal human suffering. He ranks high in my pantheon of the world’s great creative geniuses. He will never cease to fascinate me.
To my adored wife Linda, I reserve my deepest gratitude for her unequivocal love, her boundless generosity, her patience, her unflagging support of my wildest schemes, and for the untold concessions she continues to make along the way to grant me the luxury of being me.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Born in Paris, educated in France, Romania and Israel, W. E. Gutman is a widely published veteran journalist. Between 1991 and 2006, he covered politics, the military, human rights and other socio-economic issues in Central America. Formerly the international editor of the futurist New York-based magazine, OMNI, and U.S. editor of the Moscow-based magazine, Science in the USSR, he continues to write for a number of mainstream and special-interest publications. A self-described iconoclast, devout atheist and Freemason, he lives with his wife in Southern California’s “high desert.”