This book is the first exhaustive iconographical study of The Last Judgement by Hieronymus Bosch, in Vienna, and of its counterpart by Lucas Cranach, in East Berlin. The author’s method of study is to ‘read’ the painting bit by bit, faithfully recording even minute details. He then proceeds to interpret the contemporary symbolism of the separate parts, allowing him to place them in relation to each other and subsequently to arrive at an explanation of the whole. The comparison between the Bosch and the Cranach leads to a new theory on the connection between the two. Also new, is the hypothesis on how the works came to be where they are to-day. Most interesting is the demonstration of the impact that the introduction of syphilis into Europe in Bosch’s time, had on the artist’s work.
Among the most important features of this work are: the coherent interpretation of the multiplicity of complex figures in Bosch’s Last Judgement, largest of the artist’s remaining works, and the way this is done by what has been called Bax’s simple, direct and beautifully logical approach. Completed in the last year of the author’s life, the study demonstrates and confirms the validity of this particular method, proving it to be basic to any real understanding of Bosch. The great wealth of medieval and sixteenth- century material in the fields of language, literature, art, folklore, religion, law, medicine, etc., reflecting not only Bosch’s sources, but also giving an insight to a state of society during a major transitional period of Western civilization, rendering the book a work of reference on much more than Bosch’s painting. Finally, the careful comparison of Cranach’s Last Judgement, a lesser known work, hardly if ever publicized by way of reproduction, with that of Bosch, leading to the conclusion that the former was not copied from the latter.