The Last Judgement Triptych by Hieronymus Bosch in Vienna

One of the paintings held in the collection of the Gemäldegalerie of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna is of international renown: The triptych known as "The Last Judgement" by Hieronymus Bosch This Artist holds a singular rank in art history at the breakup of Netherlandish late Gothic art, opening to new, "modern" developments of Renaissance art. He created a highly individual idiom in his picture language, starting basically from the canonized apparatus of religious painting in his times, but transforming that into images which touch us even today with their hopelessness concerning mankind and their distance from God. There are just 25 panels which are regarded as autograph by Bosch. Most of those works of art have been undergone a full scope research program including technical as well as art historical analysis with most modern instruments and means. There is just one painting by Bosch - and a very important one too - which lacks full research: the Vienna "Last Judgement Triptych". This research gap will almost certainly become a serious issue for international Bosch researchers during the preparations surrounding the major exhibition to be held in 2016, centred around Bosch`s hometown s`Hertogenbosch. With this perspective I would like as a long time director of the Gemäldegalerie bundle all my ideas and studies over the years and revise them thoroughly within the frame of a full scope research project. The Academy of fine Arts in Vienna houses a unique research cluster for art works in the Institute of Science and Technology in Art, headed by Manfred Schreiner. This creates an unmatched potential for collaborative work which we will use. During 24 months we intend to develop a clear picture of the physical condition of the triptych, of the conservation status of the paint, of the relation of painting to pentimenti. Parallel to the technical research I intend to find answers to the question of placing the Vienna triptych in the oeuvre of Bosch and to the "reading" of the very special iconographical program.

The Gemäldegalerie der Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien keeps in its collection a true piece of international renown: The "Last Judgement"-Triptych painted by Hieronymus Bosch.The artist, born in the Netherlandish town of 's-Hertogenbosch about 1450 and died in the same place in 1516, plays a crucial part in European art history and especially in European painting. Bosch was developing his very own pictorial language which evidently did not draw from sources in panel painting as known in the tradition of Early Netherlandish Painting. It is a crucially small number of paintings - circa twenty-five in all - the research community agreed on as by Bosch or closely related to him. These are mostly panels in which the artist mirrors a sinful mankind, oblivious of God and doomed to an existence in a never ending hell.Those twenty-five panels ascribed to Bosch vary in some considerable extent, directing most efforts of the Bosch-research-community to try and define the criteria of an "original" work by Bosch's own hand besides those done in his spirit. The most important insight the research project funded by the Wissenschaftsfonds relates to this question: By means of scientific research methods it was possible to establish proof that Hieronymus Bosch drew and painted large parts of the Vienna Triptych.The Vienna Triptych was up to now a blind spot in the horizon of Bosch-research since neither its physical status nor its meaning were closely scrutinized up to now. The Bosch-Jubelee in 2016, commemorating his death 500 years ago, offered a perfect opportunity to close this gap in Bosch-research: The Wissenschaftsfonds accepted the proposal of a research project focusing on the Vienna Triptych with a dual approach in scientific research as well as in art historical reviewing. The FWF granted the financial means.Unexpected and sensational findings were provided by photographing the five panels of the Vienna Triptych with infrared light. Infrared waves help to make visible the underdrawings. Those are preparatory drawings on the grounding of the panel to clarify the position of the composition to be painted on the panel surface. In the Vienna Triptych under-drawing was further on used to clarify details which had not yet fully fixed in the artist's conception. Form a position of those micro-details such as noses, eyes, mouths, hair in faces or hands and feet became definite through a trial-and-error process of drawing on the panel itself. That is in itself a creative process. Experimenting in under- drawing means finally that the mastermind of the composition was at work in the Vienna Triptych. There are strong parallels between this style of under-drawing and the drawing ductus in Bosch's drawing on paper: Its evidently the same hand, the hand of Hieronymus Bosch.