Bosch's Last Judgement Triptych

We had our fifteen minutes with it, by ourselves, before a video-team arrived. At the Prado, you sometimes have to elbow your way in just to spend a minute with The Garden of Earthly Delights. At the Academy the Last Judgement is just standing there on a podium, in a large vacant room, fully opened, no big barrier, no glass, no bullet-proof shield. I suppose you really could touch it if you were that kind of person. Anyhow, we had our fifteen minutes, luxuriating in the myriad scenes and mysteries, took some pix, and moved on, very pleased with our experience. Oil on wood panel. Dendrochronology suggests it was not created before 1482. As always, click to enlarge.

Sorry about the glare; there was no way around it in a naturally-lit
room

Left panel: at the top God, then battling angels, the bad
angels being cast out and turned into devils

Meanwhile, back in the Biblical paradise, Eve being created

The Bad Apple thing

And the Expulsion (into the dark forest...)

Central panel: God/Jesus/Holy Spirit assisted by
Mary and John, judging; the few who are saved are
right up there with them in the bluish mandorla/
bubble...paucitas salvandorum, multitudo damnadorum...
few saved, many damned, as they said way back then

So you'd think the central panel would be mostly about judging
and the assorted acts that get you saved/damned...

But no, Bosch gets us right into punishment

Piercing was really big back then too

Fun slide to Hell

Then, in the right panel, things get really bad

Parting image

As advised in a previous post, always look on the back side of
the wings for the grisaille images; these are what is seen except on
the special occasions when the whole triptych is opened

St. James, wandering

St. Bevo, being charitable

Me, doing my thing

Akademie Der Bildenden Kunste

Our second Jugernstil (Art Nouveau) walk led us past the Secession museum and into the Naschmarkt before getting us to the Linke Wienzeile...but we knew that the Academy of Fine Arts was just a block or two away and that it contained the Bosch Last Judgement triptych. Indeed, we'd seen the Judgement in 2010 (no fotos!), and seen Cranach's copy of it last month in Berlin. Any Bosch will do for us, but the triptychs, with all their myriad, lurid details are best. Putting our Jugendstil interest on pause, we made our way to the Akademie, which has, as one might expect, a fine collection of European painting in addition to all its other collections. It is a fine arts institution of higher education with a short but illustrious history. Before getting to the Bosch, I'll post a few pix from the Akademie's painting collection, which were on display as part of a special exhibition of student work juxtaposed against the masters. (The student work has not stood the test of time...).

The Akademie, beautiful neo-classical building

Lecture hall: pretty formidable!

Ceilings throughout done in Pompeii style

Never miss a Claude Lorraine: Forest Lane with Herd and Herdsmen,
1633

Van Ruisdael, Forest Glade, 1646

One of several nice Rembrandt inks, Landscape with Haybarn and
a Flock of Sheep, 1652

Rembrandt, Portrait of Someone Other Than Himself,
1632

Cranach, Lucretia, 1532

Rubens, Venus Freezing, 1614; OK, if she's freezing, why doesn't
she put on some clothes? Compare Venus Frigida, here

The Biggie, Bosch's Last Judgement, c. 1482; details at 10...

Nice Botticelli tondo; oops, didn't get the title nor date

Detail

Joos van Cleve, Holy Family, c. 1520; I guess
Joseph is wearing glasses so as to look old and
decrepit and ...

Durer engraving, The Holy Family with Dragonfly,
1495; I maintain, of course, that Durer would have
been far more highly esteemed as a painter had he not
spent so much time fiddling around with that printing
press scheme...

Hans Baldung Grien, Holy Family in the Meadow,
1512; rather a different depiction of Mary than
we're accustomed to seeing...

Another Durer, Virgin and Child Seated by a
Tree, 1513

Cranach workshop, Mother and Child with Grapes, 1540

In the park, Goethe  overseeing it all

Added bonus: pretty Mother and Child, right? It's a 1913 oil painting
by one Adolf Schicklgruber (aka Hitler), whom the Academy rejected as
a drawing student in both 1907 and 1908; Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt's 2001
novel The Alternative Hypothesis explores what might have happened
had the selection committee admitted him and he stayed in the art world
rather than becoming a politician...something to think about if you're on
an admissions or hiring committee...and also consider this...

Jugendstil Walk 2

The second Jugendstil walk day was pretty much like the first: another 300 pix, some of Vienna's great public parks and monuments, some of the Naschmarkt, some from the Academy of Fine Arts, and even a few of the Jugendstil buildings we set forth to see. As with the previous walk's pix, I'll just post the Jugendstil items here, leaving the rest for separate posts. After nine days here, the "out-takes" folder is already bursting.

We decided this was a Jugendstil bridge over the Vienna River

The Vienna River--somewhat like the LA River, only far more
picturesque

The walk included several Otto Wagner subway station entrances;
think of Wagner as the Hector Guimard of Vienna

Another

Interior

Not sure what this was...possibly not Jugendstil

All this only a few hundred meters from the city center

Klimt's Beethoven frieze left us cold, so we avoided...

The Secession Museum, which we'd seen in 2012

We're now doing the Naschmarkt (later posts), but noticing the
grand buildings lining the boulevard

Another

And now, the prize, the Linke Wienzeile buildings, both designed
by Wagner; sort of a Block of Discord

The Medallion House

Detail; Wagner sold the plan for these apartment buildings to the city
council with his famous "form follows function" dictum; which is
mystifying to us...

And the Majolika House, perhaps the most famous Jugendstil

And a neighbor, not Jugendstil, but pretty nonetheless;
with a caryatid, too