The social anxieties of death in Hieronymus Bosch

An analysis of the painting "The Death of the miser” (1490–1510)

Abstract

This article examines the social anxieties surrounding death through the painting “The Death of the Miser” (1490–1510) by Hieronymus Bosch, situating it within the context of the social and spiritual transformations that marked the fifteenth century. Wars, epidemics, and political instability, together with the strengthening of eschatological conceptions of the afterlife, shaped an imaginary permeated by fear of Hell and hope for Heaven. The study seeks to understand how the painting articulates symbolic, theological, and social elements to represent death as a space of moral dispute and eschatological revelation, bringing together the historical environment of crisis, the organization of the Afterlife, and macabre iconography as a pedagogy of death. The methodology combines bibliographical review, relational image analysis, and investigation of the imaginary, allowing the artwork to be interpreted as an active agent in shaping medieval sensibilities. It is concluded that “The Death of the Miser” not only reflects but also participates in the construction of the medieval imaginary of death, rendering visible the spiritual and social tensions that structured the experience of Western Christendom.