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Circus Hieronymus Bosch

Posted on 2004-05-03 16:05

A produktion by FLAIRCK and CORPUS. The 'acrobatic' musicians of Flairck, Holland's foremost acoustic band and the 'musical' acrobats of Corpus, the well-known acrobatic theatre group from Amsterdam have joined forces in a new theatrical circus production

Hieronymus Bosch was one of the first painters to explore the artistic territory beyond the religious boundaries of his time. He illustrated sin, placing evil against the bizarre beauty of nature; his hellish visions were not located in the traditional position below the mortal world bui rather set in the midst of it, as symbols of the torture of the human soul.

Throughout the late middle ages interaction with southern parts of Europe brought tales and songs of Spanish and Moorish origin to the North. Reciprocally the influence of Bosch, and other Dutch painters, took hold in southern Europe. Indeed Bosch was commissioned by the Spanish court on several occasions. The Spanish attitude towards Hieronymus Bosch was that "the difference between the work of this painter and that of others is that they paint people as they appear on the outside, Hieronymus Bosch has the courage to paint the inside of mankind".

In 1842 the book Of the Three Blind Dances was published in Holland; it describes the three dances in which everyone must partake: love, fate and death. The book resembles the work of the then 32-year-old painter: Bosch painted triptychs showing thejourney through life and the three panels (from left to right) often illustrate creation, life on earth and death. The closed panel, in the case of the triptych The Garden of Delights, shows earth before the creation of life. Flairck has adopted this structure in the production Circus Jeroen Bosch. The 'Overture' represente the outer panel of the closed triptych, 'Creation' the left panel and 'Earth' the middle panel. The right panel represente Heil and Heaven. The show ends with the 'Finale'.