The connection between the medieval religious worldview and artistic conventions that were commonly accepted in that era forms an indispensable premise of the art history studies into the period under consideration1. As the world outlook of the medieval West European society was largely determined by an acute fear of sin and eternal damnation2, a significant portion of the West European art works created between ca 1000 and ca 1500 featured scenes and symbols dealing with the nature of sin and the ways of expunging it from the human life. With the advent of the Renaissance and the subsequent re-focus on the Antiquity-inspired rehabilitation of the human corporeity, the so-called late Gothic art would nevertheless demonstrate its tenacity, especially …show more content…
Sources dealing with Hieronymus Bosch’s artistic style and its cultural-religious context, particularly with regard to The Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last Things. The contribution by Laura D. Gelfand, as published in The Seven Deadly Sins: From Communities to Individuals8, may prove to be the principal oeuvre that is relevant to the present study because the author places explicit focus on the social and moralistic implications of the painting in question. The author’s claim that The Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last Things was intended to serve as a mirror-like image of one’s sins, with a view to “sharing God’s view of the world and recognizing oneself within this view”9 might certainly be taken as a reflection on the wider scholarship of the symbolism of the eye and the mirror in the late medieval thought10. At the same time, Gelfand’s contribution is marked by an intense scrutiny of the social class aspects of the Boschean representation of the seven deadly sins, thereby unveiling a rather important but sadly neglected aspect of this …show more content…
Newhauser and Susan J. Ridyard) deals with the subjects ranging from Thomas Aquinas’ conceptualization of the seven deadly sins in the 13th century18, to the views on the seven deadly sins in the early German Reformation movements19. The importance of this anthology lies in the fact that it provides a comprehensive and wide-ranging perspective on the seven deadly sins doctrine in its late medieval incarnation, with the proper references to the early medieval precursors of the latter. Accordingly, its inclusion could enable one to gain a deeper perception of religious and socio-cultural references that may have motivated Bosch in the course of his artistic activities over The Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last Things.
Similarly, The Seven Deadly Sins: From Communities to Individuals, another anthology edited by Richard G. Newhauser20, represents a seminal collection of the contributions dealing with the array of subjects (including Gelfand’s specific study of the Boschean artwork already discussed above) that could shed light on further aspects of the seven deadly sins concept and their religious and socio-cultural implications. Thus the reference to the contributions incorporated in that volume may widen the dimensions of the study’s