The Garden of Earthly Delights

Hieronymus Bosch (c. 1450 – 9 August 1516) was a Dutch/Netherlandish draughtsman

and painter from Brabant. He is one of the most notable representatives of the Early
Netherlandish painting school. His work contains fantastic illustrations of religious concepts and
narratives. Within his lifetime his work was collected in the Netherlands, Austria, and Spain, and
widely copied, especially his macabre and nightmarish depictions of hell.

Little is known of Bosch's life, though there are some records. He spent most of it in the
town of 's-Hertogenbosch, where he was born in his grandfather's house. The roots of his
forefathers are in Nijmegen and Aachen (which is visible in his surname: Van Aken). His
pessimistic and fantastical style cast a wide influence on northern art of the 16th century, with
Pieter Bruegel the Elder being his best-known follower. In 1488 he joined the highly respected
Brotherhood of Our Lady, an arch-conservative religious group of some 40 influential citizens of
's-Hertogenbosch, and 7,000 'outer-members' from around Europe. Today he is seen as a hugely
individualistic painter with deep insight into humanity's desires and deepest fears. Attribution has
been especially difficult; today only about 25 paintings are confidently given to his hand along
with 8 drawings. Approximately another half dozen paintings are confidently attributed to his
workshop. His most acclaimed works consist of a few triptych altarpieces, including The Garden
of Earthly Delights. He did not date his paintings, but—unusual for the time—he seems to have
signed several of them, although some signatures purporting to be his are certainly not. He signed
a number of his paintings as Jheronimus Bosch. The name derives from his birthplace, 's-
Hertogenbosch, which is commonly called "Den Bosch" ('the forest').

The Garden of Earthly Delights is the modern title given to a triptych oil painting on
oak panel painted by the master Hieronymus Bosch, between 1490 and 1510, when he was
between 40 and 60 years old.

The work of art arrived in Spain after

King Philip II bought it at auction in 1591.
He then displayed it at his home, the
Escorial. Since 1939, the painting has been
a landmark piece in the Prado’s Collection.
It was moved here from the Escorial by the
government for safe keeping during the
Spanish Civil War and has remained as part
of the collection since.

This triptych is one of the most

enigmatic and evocative religious paintings
of the 16th century Netherlandish
Renaissance. Designed in all probability as a
private, moralistic, altarpiece (albeit
somewhat eccentric), it consists of three
hinged panel paintings filled with the most
bizarre, fantastical figures and surreal
creatures.

Oil paint was still a fairly new

medium when the work was painted. Bosch's
paintings with their rough surfaces, so called
impasto painting, differed from the tradition
of the great Netherlandish painters of the end
of the 15th, and beginning of the 16th
centuries, who wished to hide the work done
and so suggest their paintings as more nearly
divine creations.

The triptych was most likely

intended to be read from left to right, as each
panel’s meaning is interconnected. The outer
left panel shows God introducing Eve to
Adam and the right panel depicts the torture
of damnation. The background reveals
several animals that would have been exotic to contemporaneous Europeans, including a giraffe,
an elephant and a lion that has killed and about to devour his prey. Behind Eve, rabbits symbolize
fecundity and a dragon tree opposite is thought to represent eternal life. According to art historian
Virginia Tuttle, the scene is "highly unconventional and cannot be identified as any of the events
from the Book of Genesis traditionally depicted in Western art".

In Fränger's view, the scene illustrates: a Utopia, a garden of divine delight before the
Fall, or — since Bosch could not deny the existence of the dogma of Original Sin — a millennial
condition that would arise if, after expiation of Original Sin, humanity were permitted to return to
paradise and to a state of tranquil harmony embracing all Creation.

The central, and most well-known, panel is what the piece takes its name after. This
garden shows the surreal and bizarre temptations on Earth. Thus, reading from left to right, we
can see how man was created, lived, and then failed due to his own behavior. Abandonment of
temptation is a general theme of Bosch’s, specifically in the Garden of Earthly Delights the
figures give themselves over to the most earthly of temptations. There is at least a hint of evil to
be found in each scene of the triptych, and through the narrative the viewer follows its growth
and the figures’ increasing willingness to give in to it.

In the upper half of the main panel we see maidens bathing and they are encircled by
hordes of men riding horses, donkeys, unicorns and beasts in various poses of bravado and
acrobatics in order to gain the attention and favour of the females. It is a powerful allegory for the
loss of innocence and the responsibility that comes with free will and knowledge, since we all can
do both good and evil deeds, depending on
our nature. Interestingly there are no
children or elders in the painting, perhaps
denoting the garden as it would have been
before the fall of man, in a utopia without
consequences.

Also, the scene contains no focal

point and no linear narrative, which
enhances the overall mood of abandonment.
Note the absence of God in this panel,
which highlights what happens when
mankind is given complete freedom. As we
can see, under such circumstances, Bosch
predicts a playground of corruption.

The seemingly odd and whimsical

center panel transforms into a dark, evil,
and unsettling place in the third panel. On
the right side panel, a nightmarish, hell-like
mirage is depicted. The disturbing
landscape portrays a diabolic affair where
humans are disfigured and tormented by
monstrous animals in a musical hell.

The flames, furnace and fires raging

in the night of the upper part of the right
panel would have been painted from real
fires that Bosch had witnessed. Given the
religious situation of the time it’s highly
likely that he would have seen the burning
of villages and executions of those branded
as heretics and witches.

Many elements in the panel

incorporate earlier iconographical
conventions depicting hell. However, Bosch
is innovative in that he describes hell not as
a fantastical space, but as a realistic world
containing many elements from day-to-day
human life.
 He furthermore went to great pains to make it patently obvious that two of his great
paintings represented a particular side of man: The Garden of Earthly Delights, man's inner life;
and The Haywain, his outer life. Understandings of the difference between man's inner or
spiritual and outer or temporal life are nothing new to religion or esotericism; the subject has
been studied for thousands of years, so it is unsurprising to see a figure from the Northern
Renaissance —clearly, judging from the extraordinary quality and completely unique nature of
his paintings alone, a genius — investigating these questions at depth.

Closer to the center level of the landscapes, each panel has manmade-looking structures
and bodies of water that act in the same way, creating a sense of symmetry while smoothly
transitioning the landscape from one scene to the next. In Paradise, there is one pink structure,
with an owl inside of it, found in the middle of a small body of water. Transitioning into the
Imaginary Paradise, the water seems to follow the curve from the Paradise river, leading slightly
up closer to the top of the panel. In this center panel, there are three larger structures and two
smaller ones, all either pink or blue in color, and with figures climbing and performing stunning
balance and acrobatic moves along their rims. These structures sit in and along the edges of this
body of water flows from the left panel into this central image. In the Hell panel, the body of
water moves down slightly once again, mirroring the water in the Paradise panel. Here is the
striking structure of the Tree Man, who houses inhabitants of his own, what seem to be a group of
gluttons being served by a hellish bartender.

Bosch's paintings, as it happens, are by no means as mysterious or impossible to

understand as their reputation suggests. The artist was nothing if not meticulous in establishing a
clear set of symbolic meanings in his artwork, so that a reader who read them with attention and
understanding would decode almost every image in the painting without fail, and understand that
every single one of them was related.
 When the left and right panels are closed, it’s possible to see the outside of the triptych,
which Bosch painted in grisaille. Grisaille is used to describe a painting entirely executed in tones
of gray or neutral colors. It was common for Netherlandish altarpieces of the time to have
grisaille work on the outer panels as a means to contrast with the colorful interior.

The work shows the world in stunning detail, encased in a clear globe. In the upper left
corner, it’s possible to make out the tiny figure of God, who is wearing a Papal tiara. Next to him
an inscription from Psalm 33:9 reads “For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it
stood firm.”

Bosch has painted an image of the Earth on day 3 of its creation by God, when the land is
separated from the sea. Thus, when the doors are closed it denotes the oneness and unity of
creation that is to become fragmented and corrupted once the panels are opened to reveal the
carnage within.

If Bosch’s weird, wacky world reminds you of Salvador Dalí and other Surrealists, there’s
a good reason. Dalí and Joan Miró both viewed the work in person at the Prado and produced
pieces paintings that pay homage to Bosch’s work. By portraying overly sexualized characters
and hybrid animals, they are indirectly quoting the Netherlandish master.