This title is a Taschen 25 - Special edition! It presents the pictorial world of Hieronymus Bosch. If Hieronymus Bosch (1450-1516) remains an enigma today, it is little wonder. Even his contemporaries found the Dutch painter's work difficult to decipher - and it still presents riddles to contemporary art historians. Part of the problem in decoding his shocking and richly allegorical paintings is that virtually nothing is known of the artist himself, apart from his birthplace. There is no record of his life or training, no personal letters, diaries or notebooks, and no contemporary insights into his personality or thoughts on the meaning of his art. Even his date of birth can only be guessed at, and that based on a drawing assumed to be a self-portrait, made shortly before his death in 1516, which supposedly shows the artist in his late sixties. Bosch remains as mysterious as the worlds he painted. Although rooted in the Old Dutch tradition, Bosch developed a highly subjective, richly suggestive formal language. With a mixture of religious humility and satanic wit, he illustrated both the joys of heaven and the cruelly imaginative tortures of hell. In his pictorial world teeming with surrealistic nightmares, the medieval imagination catches fire in a moment of final brilliance before succumbing to humanism and modern rationalism. Though the man himself remains a mystery, this book pulls together the elusive threads of Bosch's entire oeuvre into a cohesive and comprehensive analysis of his visionary work and methods. Every book in Taschen's "Basic Art Series" features: a detailed chronological summary of the artist's life and work, covering the cultural and historical importance of the artist; approximately 100 color illustrations with explanatory captions; and, a concise biography.

希羅尼穆斯·波希（Hieronymus Bosch，其真名為Jeroen van Aken，另名Jeroen Bosch；西元1450年－西元1516年八月）是一位十五至十六世紀的多產荷蘭畫傢。他多數的畫作多在描繪罪惡與人類道德的沉淪。波希以惡魔、半人半獸甚至是機械的形象來錶現人的邪惡。他的圖畫複雜，有高度的原創性、想像力，並大量使用各式的象徵與符號，其中有些甚至在他的時代中也非常晦澀難解。波希被認為是20世紀的超現實主義的啟發者之一。

他的真名是Jheronimus（或Jeroen）van Aken，意思是「亞琛來的人」。他在一部份畫作上署名Bosch（荷蘭文，音近英文Boss），取自他的齣生地斯海爾托亨博斯。在西班牙文中他則多被稱為El Bosco。

波希齣生於繪畫世傢，他的雙親分別是荷蘭與德國人。他大部分的人生都在斯海爾托亨博斯渡過，這是十五世紀當時布拉班特（今荷蘭南部）一個熱鬧的城市。1463年時，約13歲的他可能曾目睹在當地發生的嚴重火災。不久之後他成為知名的畫傢，甚至曾接到海外的委託。1488年他加入瞭「Our Lady」兄弟會，一個極端保守的信仰組織，由40位斯海爾托亨博斯當地有權勢的市民，以及歐洲各地7000多名的會員組成。