Voces del Prado

Dürer vs. Bosch

María Teresa Dávila Álvarez, Restorer, 1982-2013

Dürer and Bosch are contradictory. Dürer is all delicacy. He is extremely delicate, having constructed his paintings with a facility that is impossible to divine, to the point where it seems almost impossible to believe that any human being might be able to create such a precious gem with such simple materials. It’s a glaze, but it’s convincing and expressive at the same time. And layer by layer, glaze by glaze he creates figures that are extremely expressive, based on a very German sentiment.
Bosch has another way of constructing, one in which he appears to be fighting between two worlds. It’s a ‘yes’, but also a ‘no’. It’s a mixed technique: it’s like tempera, but it’s also like oil.