The Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch lived and worked in the late Middle Ages (1450-1516) - and yet his surreal imagery seems incredibly modern. He combined the grotesque with the satirical in an incomparable way and so made the vicious humanity look in the mirror. This kind of artistic perspective was taken over by surrealists centuries later.

In the art history Hieronymus Bosch was known as "the Bosch case ", as people didn’t know what to do with him. For a few hundred years he was completely forgotten, there is hardly any biographical information, and his works do not fit with his time at all. The painting of the late Gothic and early Renaissance were rather characterised with realism and grace, however, Bosch created revolutionary works: hideous hybrids of humans and animals, hunchbacked demons, creatures with bird bodies and eyeglasses, strange tree people and other bizarre characters. Yet Bosch was a respected artist in his time, and had admirers of high rang: Philip the Fair or Margaret of Austria, regent of Netherlands were obviously fascinated by this unique imagery.

(Rebirth). Designation of art from about 1350 until the 16th century.

A state of mind that developed in Florence in the late 14th century that was retrospectively classified as rebirth of the classical ideals of Greek and Roman antiquity. During the 15th and 16th centuries, the Renaissance spread first over Italy and then all over Western Europe and determined the entire artistic creation. Such brilliant artists as Donatello, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, Dürer, Holbein, Cranach and Fouquet created their immortal works by following the humanistic premises and putting a human being in the center of all thinking.

Renaissance experienced its heyday in literature through dramatic works and poems of William Shakespeare.

At the end of the 16th century, Renaissance had to make way to the luxury of baroque before its ideas had their rebirth in the classicism of the 18th century.