The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch has been interpreted in so many ways.
I don't think that this is a painting about sexual freedom or of a medieval acid trip.
This is not Bosh's erotic fantasy or even a heretical attack on the church.
And this is not a painting by a member of an obscure free love cult.
The Garden of Earthly Delights is pure and simply, hardcore Christianity.
THIS is a painting about sin.
The garden of Earthly Delights consists of three oak panels, hinged together so that the outer panels
or wings can be closed. The centre panel is 220 by 195 centimetres, and the side panels each,
are 220 by 97.5 centimetres. When the panels are closed, Bosch presents us with a very different image.
Triptychs usually had one important Biblical scene in the middle, with donors or saints either side.
But in The Garden of Earthly Delights, all three panels are equally part of the story.
At first glance the painting is chaotic and overwhelming - but it has been meticulously planned.
It has been said that the The Garden of Earthly Delights ignores linear perspective,
which had become the norm in Renaissance art. But I don't think so. If we look at the dead
centre of the panels, we find a hidden egg. It is the only unhatched egg on this panel.
A possible symbol of new beginnings. If we use this egg as the vanishing point, Bosch's
composition has an order - and the action emanates from the centere of the panel.
Then the three panels are linked by a common horizon line - they divide into three
sections: Foreground, Mid-ground and Background. The foreground contains the most important detail.
Each panel in the mid-ground contains a body of water. A small lake with a fountain, a pool with female bathers,
and a frozen lake. The background consists of towers. Organic in Eden and man-made in Hell.
And then in each panel there is a central axis that your eyes are drawn to. Another way he anchors
the three panels is by repetition. A good example is Adam whose position is repeated in panel two
as an Eve figure, and panel three in reverse. As we will see, all of these visual elements pull
The Garden of Earthly Delights together, and were planned in the early stages. Jan van Eyke didn't
invent oil paints, but he did perfect them, one hundred years before Bosch. In my video on van Eyke, I show
how he depicted minute hyper realistic detail, by building up oil paint in translucent layers,
using a tiny brush. Van Eyke didn't leave the brush strokes or any evidence of the human hand.
Bosch differed from the Netherlandish painters at the time, and used a fairly sketchy style,
along with the "Impasto" technique where paint is thickly applied. And you can clearly see the brush
strokes in relief, which gives the surface texture. Bosch allows us to see the individual at work.
The late middle ages were a pivotal moment in European history. Explorers were discovering new
exotic lands, Leonardo da Vinci was painting "The Mona Lisa", Copernicus proposed that the
sun was at the center of our solar system, and Erasmus was exploring radical new ideas.
The last bloody battles of The Hundred Years War had been fought, and now Christian Europe was facing an
onslaught by the Ottoman Empire. It was the eve of the Reformation and Europe was experiencing
the first stirrings of a spiritual crisis, and yet it was also the height of the Spanish Inquisition.
In 's-Hertogenbosch in the Netherlands, a man called Hieronymus Bosch had no idea that a painting he
was working on, would still confound and confuse viewers five centuries after he painted it.
We cannot look at Bosch's paintings with modern sensibilities, for while we may be comfortable
with sex as a part of the human condition, in the Middle ages, sex was seen as contributing
to man's fall from grace. This was a time when European artists, writers, and theologians were
shaping a new terrifying vision of Hell AND the punishment awaiting sinners. Bosch's imagery -
no matter how bizarre - is nothing more than a faithful representation of the world in which he lived.
It is an intensely moralistic work that should be approached as what it is - Religious propaganda.
As the 15th century turned into the 16th century, art got darker. The Garden of Earthly Delights
is a compelling way to look back, to a period that was no longer Medieval but not yet modern.
It is often assumed that Hieronymus Bosch is a Medieval artist - but he is a Renaissance artist.
An exact contemporary of Leonardo da Vinci and influenced by the same ideas. Curiosity of thought,
a hallmark of the Renaissance fills his detailed and extremely precise paintings.
Bosch was part of the Northern Renaissance, living and working in 's-Hertogenbosch,
commonly known as Den Bosch, in what is now the Netherlands.
The Northern Renaissance artists were not nearly as well documented as the Italians.
In fact we know next to nothing about Bosch's life. History portrays him as a loner, but we know
he was born to a family of artists in THIS house, and that he was hugely successful and prolific.
His real name was Jerome van Aiken and he was born around 1450. Later he would change his name
to reflect Den Bosch the town he lived in. He took "Hieronymus" for his first name - the Latin for Jerome.
When he was a child, a major fire in Den Bosch burned the Medieval city to the ground.
As people panicked and screamed for their lives, he must have been affected, and it's not too much of a
leap to think it inspired his vivid depictions of hellfire, which we see in many of his works.
Den Bosch was a fiercely Catholic city with over 40 churches, chapels, and monasteries,
and a spectacular Gothic Cathedral. One in every 16 citizens worked for the church.
Hieronymus Bosch was a member of a Conservative Christian organization - "The Illustrious Brotherhood
of our Blessed Lady", dedicated to the reverence of Mary, with their own chapel in St John's
Cathedral. He received several commissions from the brotherhood, which was not just a
religious organization, it was also a social network. Bosch married Aleyt van den Meerveen,
a wealthy older woman around 1480. They had no children and we know Bosch's funeral was in 1516.
Records show us that Bosch's work originally filled the brotherhood's chapel in St. John's
Cathedral, and much of his inspiration would have come directly from the Cathedral.
As inventive as he was, his hybrid animals and monsters, were from a well-established church
tradition, exemplified by St. John's Cathedral. Bosch's creatures were certainly inspired by
its Gothic Gargoyles, of curious figures, animals, and monsters. Elements of gothic architecture
inspired him as well, and in 1492 a baptismal font arrived in St. John's that is not dissimilar
in style to Bosch's strange architectural structures. As part of the brotherhood's inner
elite, he had easy access to the Cathedral's archives and library, and another influence
would have been the Medieval manuscripts where we find "Drollery" or "Grotesques" in the margins.
These are small decorative images which are often humorous or sexual in nature. Many of the images in
The Garden of Earthly Delights can be traced back to the drolleries we see in manuscripts.
Books of beasts or "Bestiaries" were amongst the most popular illuminated texts in Northern Europe.
A Bestiary consists of both real and mythical animals. The main purpose of them was not to teach
about the animal kingdom, but to teach people how to lead the life of a virtuous Christian.
Artists would often get their inspiration from the journals of explorers. The first
time most people saw a giraffe was in Syriac of Ancona's "Egyptian Voyage". Bosch would draw
from this book many times over the years, and other artists would also use it as a template.
A busy artist like Bosch would have a bank of his own images that he would re-use,
and we can see images repeated over several different works of his - again and again.
What we think of as Hell, and certainly what Bosch thought of as Hell, is not based on the Bible.
And much of what we think of as Hell comes from later mistranslations and Medieval art.
What Hell is like - or whether it exists in the Bible at all - is widely disputed, even within modern Christianity.
Dante Alighieri's epic poem "The Divine Comedy" from 1320, which describes Dante's journey through the
nine circles of Hell, was hugely influential in European art. An earlier book "The Vision of Tundale"
would be a major influence on Bosch. Based on the 12th century visions of an Irish knight, it was
part of the Medieval genre of "visionary Infernal Literature" that helped to define our ideas of Hell.
By the time Bosch painted The Garden of Earthly Delights, people firmly believed in Heaven and Hell.
Satan became a major figure. Reports of encounters with demons increased,
heretics and witches were burned, and vivid descriptions of Hell were reproduced in art.
Often with paintings, we can look at the person who commissioned them to give us more insights
into the work. In 1517, a year after Bosch died, we know for a fact that The Garden of Earthly Delights
was in the Brussels palace of Henry III of the Nassau dynasty,
the probable patron. The Netherlands at the time was ruled by Spain under King Philip the Handsome,
but the local governors such as Henry came from the Nassau family.
Henry was known as a cultured, educated, and inquisitive ma n, and he was transforming his
residence into a magnificent Renaissance court. His art collection was central to that transformation.
We know Henry visited Den Bosch with King Philip in 1504, and it was probably during this visit,
that he commissioned The Garden of Earthly Delights. Enigmatic paintings were fashionable in Europe
at this time, and Henry would have understood the originality and intelligent thought involved in
the painting. You would typically find Triptychs in Churches as altarpieces, where the outer panels
were kept closed. On special occasions, such as Holy days, the panels were opened, and the glorious
religious scenes inside were revealed to the congregation. We can only imagine Henry inviting
the crowned heads of Europe and their court to his Palace to see his collection of "objects of
wonder", which included a meteorite a giant bed and this curious painting. The outer panels of
The Garden of Earthly Delights could not prepare his guests for what lay within. Leading them over
to this rather dull image of the third day of creation. Two of his men would open the gloomy panels.
People had never seen anything quite like this. It was a true sensation - like an early form of cinema,
that would occupy them for hours - like it does us - Art historian Reindert Falkenberg
believes that The Garden of Earthly Delights was designed as a kind of "conversation piece".
As he points out - its characters are often pointing or whispering secrets to each other.
They are inside the painting, reflecting us doing the same thing, in front of the painting.
It is a perfect reflection of the Renaissance taste for highly original, intricate allegories,
full of meaning - only understood by a limited and elite audience.
By opening the outer panels you are opening up a world of metaphors and theological problems,
starting with the garden itself. The central garden goes against the basic principle of the time,
that artists should portray Biblical stories that actually happened in the Bible.
In the central panel Bosch shows mankind giving into temptation - a scene anyone familiar with
the Bible knows is not depicted in Genesis. It was only Adam and Eve in the garden. The earth wasn't
populated until AFTER the expulsion - so this is a creation of Bosch's imagination. Just by
fictionalising or imagining a scene in the Bible, Bosch has freed himself to let his dreams run wild.
This is new and exciting, as we can see the figures are unashamed of their nudity, which reflects how
Adam and Eve were before the expulsion. A lush garden would have strong sexual connotations
to Bosch's contemporaries. They would have known about western literature's most famous love garden
at the time. Described in the 13th century French poem "Romance of the Rose" in The Garden of Earthly
Delights, Bosch incorporated the same traditional iconography depicted in "Romance of the Rose".
Lush greenery, beautiful flowers, singing birds, and a fountain in the centre around which the
lovers gather to stroll or sing. Water too is associated with love and lovemaking in Bosch's day.
Even representations of "The Fountain of Life" frequently received an erotic twist. The concept of
the Garden of Eden was changing around this period. It is important to remember that before the age of
discovery, it was a widely held belief that the Garden of Eden still existed somewhere on earth.
But as the undiscovered world opened up, revealing fantastical beasts and landscapes, the feeling was
that there was less and less chance of paradise existing here on earth. It shifted the way people
saw the world and perceived paradise, and greatly influenced Bosch's painting. By making his Garden
of Earthy Delights a place of the "imagination" Bosch was reflecting this shift in thinking.
Bosch's images are so ambiguous and their meaning so elusive
that they cannot be addressed by iconography alone.
When the outer panels are closed, it shows a monochrome painting of the creation of the world,
on a flat landscape enclosed in a transparent sphere with God the father looking down.
God appears as a tiny luminous figure in the darkness, his hands are raised
which is medieval code to tell us he is speaking. He is reciting verse 9 of psalm 33
"For he spoke and it was done - for he commanded and it stood fast"
If we look at a later verse from the same psalm it explains the aerial perspective we see inside.
The panels represent the third day of creation, when God is separating the land from the water,
and the earthly paradise or Eden was created. These exterior doors are designed to act as a
prologue to the interior. The use of monochrome or what is known as "Grisaille" for the outer panels of a
Triptych, was quite conventional and is there to set the stage for the explosion of colour within.
There is some vegetation forming and strange hybrid landscapes, which connect with what we'll
see inside, but man has not yet been created and so not had a chance to abuse God's earth:
The theme of the inner panels. The Nuremberg chronicle published in 1493
was an important source of inspiration for Bosch and one we will come back to.
The first of its more than 1,800 illustrations shows God the father crowned and enthroned,
holding an orb with his left hand and making a sign of benediction with his right. He also
quotes Psalm 33. The dome is peculiar to modern eyes. In researching this video I used a translation of
the Volgate Bible, the first official Bible of the Catholic Church and the one Bosch would have used.
The meaning can often vary from translation to translation. On day two in Genesis, the Vulgate
translated the Hebrew as "God created the sky under a dome". This is sometimes translated as "Firmament"
from the word firm or solid. There was theological disagreement, but Bosch would have been well aware
of this idea that the world was created in a solid dome, and it was a standard artistic convention.
Around this time, science made more discoveries about the earth, and a solid dome became a big
theological problem. By the time Galileo began examining the sky a hundred years after
The Garden of Earthly Delights, the concept of a solid dome was no longer a common belief.
This of course met with opposition from within the Catholic Church AND accusations of heresy.
This panel is sometimes known as "The joining of Adam and Eve"
and shows a scene in the Garden of Eden when God presents Eve to Adam. God's right hand is
raised in blessing while he holds Eve's wrist with his left. It is an uncommon scene in art.
God is very Christ-like and has blonde hair and blue eyes. It is likely that this image was used
to illustrate the belief that Jesus is God in human form - God Incarnate - We know from
infrared scans and analysis that Bosch originally intended God to be more traditionally portrayed,
and he was looking down at Adam. The original plan was a more classic image we have seen many times.
That of god creating Eve from Adam's rib. But Bosch changed it to the moment
when God blesses their union, and urges them to procreate. He is saying "Be fruitful and multiply".
By changing this panel from one of the creation of Eve, to one that is associated with marriage,
it changes the entire reading of the Triptych:T hat marriage and reproduction are inextricably linked.
But the theological questions raised here, is the role of sexual activity and lust in Eden.
Adam, who has just woken up is smiling and wide-eyed at the sight of Eve - his cheeks are flushed.
Eve is looking down innocently, while at the same time seductively presenting her body to Adam.
God as christ is looking directly at us, so we too are complicit in what is to come.
Eve is on the left of God and he is holding her with his left hand. Left is "Sinistra" in
latin or sinister. Adam, however is to God's right - the place of honour in religious art.
Below Eve's feet are rabbits, who for obvious reasons symbolise fertility. Besides Adam, a tomcat
has captured its prey. As anachronistic as it is to us, to the medieval viewer having
a Christ as God in the garden of Eden was common, and would be seen as an omen of the crucifixion,
a direct result of original sin. The point is emphasised further by the position of Adam's feet
which echo Christ on the cross. Over Christ's shoulder is the tree of life. It is a Dragon
blood tree which when cut, releases a dark red pulp, giving it its name. The flat leaves of the tree
resemble the wafers of Eucharist, and the grapes reference the wine.
Giving us a direct link to the body and blood of Christ. The vaguely crucifix form of the
tree, may be the medieval belief that Jesus was crucified on a cross linked to the tree of life.
Bosch would not have known the dragon blood species found only in tropical climates.
Once again the Nuremberg Chronicle is his source. In this image of the Garden of Eden,
we find all three trees in Bosch's painting: The dragon blood tree, the tree of knowledge,
and the date palm, symbolic of Resurrection, which bosch paints with the serpent waiting to strike.
Earthly paradise looks peaceful at first glance. but it already holds the dark promise of sin.
The pool below, is already starting to be populated by strange creatures, the three-headed bird perhaps
points to the trinity. A unicorn representing purity drinks from the pond on the left.
accompanied by a boar, a goat, a horse, a deer and a bull. These animals are going to reappear in the second panel.
The fountain of paradise is a direct link to God, by being on the same vertical axis
and being the same colour as his robes. It is a Christian symbol associated with baptism, and the Eucharist.
It serves as a symbol of life, fertility, and reproduction.
Sitting inside it we find the owl, which is a kind of signature for Bosch.
The Garden of Earthly delights has six owls. One owl barely visible
is looking down over the entire scene. The sixth owl will appear later as the Prince of Hell.
Contrary to its modern association with wisdom or intelligence, for many people in
the middle ages, the owl, as a nocturnal animal looking for prey, represented the Devil himself,
waiting for an opportunity to strike. In Bosch's world, evil exists even in the Garden of Eden.
Just to the right of the fountain is a small swan, a symbol of purity and grace.
But here I think, a nod to the Illustrious Brotherhood of the Virgin Mary, who were also
called "The Swan's Faternity" as they serve swan at their banquets. Continuing the theme of hidden
dangers in the Garden of Eden, there are a group of repulsive reptilian amphibious creatures
coming ashore. Many of Bosch's paintings feature toads, which were considered both poisonous
AND demonic in the middle ages. And in Hell they will take on the role of the devil's henchmen.
An unusual rock formation is in the form of a weeping face. This is Golgotha or "Skull Hill".
It is based on a widespread belief in the Middle Ages, that Adam's skull was buried in a cave
as seen here. Underneath the spot where Jesus would be crucified.
400 years after Bosch painted The Garden of Earthly Delights,
it will inspire the Surrealist movement and in particular Salvador Dali.
Hieronymus Bosch is often seen as a precursor to the Surrealists
who called Bosch "the first modern artist".
Unlike the Surrealists we cannot view Bosch's visions as images from his subconscious.
As far as Bosch was concerned, HIS images were realistic portrayal of sin and its consequences.
So in that sense it wasn't "Surrealism" - it was "Realism".
This panel is a carnal interpretation and direct corruption of God's words: "Be fruitful and multiply".
In the Vulgate Bible, the Garden of Eden is referred to as "Paradisum Voluptatis"
It might not be the best translation of the Hebrew, but it is extraordinary.
To Bosch, Eden would have been known as "The Paradise of Pleasure"
Explanations like these are not just for "Art History". Bosch himself - as part of the
religious orthodoxy - needed to be able to explain the theology of his paintings.
Everything in this "Paradise of Pleasure" has some kind of sexual connotation.
Hollowed-out fruit is referring to female genitalia. Two cherries together, male genitalia.
In the Middle Ages to "pluck fruit" in Dutch was a euphemism for sex.
And the dutch word "Vogelen" meaning "Bird" was a double-entendre for sexual intercourse.
All of these pleasures are transient as none of earth's pleasures will last.
This fountain is a version of the previous one. It is surrounded by four towers covered
in thorns and spikes, and four rivers reflecting the Biblical location of Eden.
But this fountain is broken and fragile - as are the delights being enjoyed in the garden.
Despite the many naked figures and suggestions of lust in the image, there are no sexual acts
explicitly portrayed, except for THIS scene. Inside the dark hole in the central sphere
of the fountain, a bearded man shamelessly touches the crotch of a naked young woman as others watch.
The owl has gone - and lust has found its way.
Follow your eyes up, and we see the crescent moon, a fairly explicit reference to the Ottoman empire and Islam,
The enemies of Christianity in the Middle Ages.
We have seen it many times in other works by Bosch - and we will see it again in Hell.
But we have to go to the bottom right hand corner to find the main message. It is of course debated
but I think this is Adam and Eve who are now fully aware of the existence of "good" and "evil",
A concept that didn't exist before the fall of man according to the Bible. Adam is looking directly
at us, as if he's the only one to understand what's going on. Pointing at Eve as if to say
"SHE is to blame". Eve is holding the fruit she has just picked, and she is gagged by what looks like
a communion wafer. This is theologically controversial and I think it refers to
chapter two in "Timothy", one of the most debated verses in the Bible.
Adam and Eve, now aware of shame - are the only ones wearing clothes in the panel.
Animal skins -which ties into the Biblical story.
Over Adam's shoulder - it is hard to make out - but the man behind him has vine leaves on his head.
This is pre-flood and I think this is Noah, there to remind us that Eve's sin will lead to the flood.
Noah - as the originator of vineyard cultivation, often is depicted with vine leaves.
Eve is encased within a semi-cylindrical transparent shield - we see these glass contraptions
throughout the painting, and they are the only man-made objects in this panel. These instruments
were associated with alchemists, who were common in the middle ages but were seen as heretics,
meddling with forbidden knowledge. This woman's body is entirely covered in glistening golden hair,
except for her face, hands, and feet, and notably her breasts. She and other figures like her in
the painting are "wild men and women", uncivilised savages, a popular subject in the age of discovery.
In and around the strange orange tent, you can only see men,
some of whom are turning their buttocks towards each other - a clear reference to homosexuality,
that no one in the middle ages would have missed. Sodomy like all non-reproductive sexual acts
are seen as a sin. One of the men is holding a fish. Like all of the fish in this panel it is
out of its element and there to remind us that the world order is in chaos. In this corner a group of
men are having a conversation, while pointing to Adam and Eve in the previous frame. It is as
if they are saying: "THIS is where it all started". Exactly what henry III's court might be saying.
The empty muscle shell should be seen like all of the empty metaphors Bosch employs:
The peeled fruit, The broken egg, The carcasses. "Emptiness" is lack of spirituality which leads to sin.
Pearls are perfectly round and pure white, so often represent "purity" and "virginity", and the fact that
the pearls are falling out of the muscle shell, tell us exactly what the couple are up to inside.
it is this type of "scene within a scene" of visual conundrums that make me believe the theory that it
WAS designed as a "conversation piece". Although the message overall is cautionary - the piece is highly entertaining.
There is a particular focus on the devouring of grotesquely huge and fleshy fruit.
All the fruits featured are soft fruits, whose taste and fragrance are fragile and transient.
Blackberries have multiple seeds, and so stand in for promiscuity. Fruit of course, has a sexual
connotation - thanks to Eve. Although the Bible doesn't specifically say which fruit Eve ate.
And anyway it wasn't "lust" that Eve succumbed to but "temptation". A common belief in the Middle Ages,
was that AFTER Eve gave into temptation, and after "The Fall" - Eve's next sin was "carnal lust".
It's not scriptures - just early misogyny.
It's a common misconception, but even today the viewer mixes up temptation and lust.
Here we see a transparent sphere - it contains a man and a woman umbilically attached to a large flower.
This could be a Boschian variation on the "May boats" depicted in late medieval books, with courting couples.
Cracks are appearing in the glass - suggesting that "Pleasure is as fragile as glass".
Keeping watch is another owl, who has taken a human lover.
Bosch's work shows a lot of interracial lovemaking. In Medieval Europe, "Moors" came to mean anyone who
was Muslim or who had dark skin. Views of Africans in Europe were often negative, and like the "wild men"
in The Garden of Earthly Delights, they were seen as uncivilized sexual beings.
The middle of this panel is dominated by the circuit of men on all kind of mounts, corralling a group of women.
In this "dance", the unicorn and other animals we saw drinking peacefully in the first panel
have been corrupted, and now serve as mounts in the circular procession of lust.
Many of the scenes in The Garden of Earthly Delights can be traced back to the court games of the aristocracy.
The "circuit" references Medieval fertility rituals. Morris dances with several men
dancing around a single woman, or around the "May tree". This parade is something the court of Henry III
would have understood. The 14th century book "Lumen Anime" by Matthias Faronata,
was hugely influential in the Netherlands. Bosch had a preoccupation with the deadly
sins, and in this widely read book, Faronata portrayed the deadly sins as riding animals.
Pride wrote a Dromedary, Lust a Bear, Wrath a camel, Sloth a Leopard and Gluttony a wild cat.
The object of their lust, Bosch's bathing women, were probable nods to the 16th century Dutch expression
"Swim in the bath of Venus", which meant being in love. The women as classical representations of Venus,
have a negative "pagan" connotation. Even here the Venus are involved in a deep conversation.
The previous scenes are set in nature, but Hell is a man-made world. There is nothing here that
they have not brought on themselves, and even the musical instruments they created have turned on them.
The demons are clothed, but the humans - or "souls" - are still naked, but they have lost
any element of eroticism, and many of them are covering their bodies ashamed of their nakedness.
What is so extraordinary, is that the strange creatures in this panel,
are painted with the same conviction and realism as the humans - as though they actually existed.
In the bottom right, we find this curious scene, which for me is the beginning of the panel.
A pig, dressed as a nun, is trying to persuade a soul to sign a document.
A helmeted demon offers a quill, and he has the ink at the ready for him to sign.
The red seals, show us this is a serious legal document. For many historians, this is seen as a
critique of the church by Bosch - specifically the sale of "indulgences". I don't think it is.
The wealthy could buy an "indulgence" from the church to have their sins forgiven, and secure
a place in Heaven. It led to widespread corruption, and only one year after Hieronymus Bosch's death,
Martin Luther published his attack on - amongst other things - the sale of indulgences, leading
to the Reformation. In the late 13th century, work started on a gothic Cathedral in Den Bosch,
and there is strong evidence that the church raised most of the funds required, by selling these indulgences.
The Illustrious Brotherhood of our Blessed Lady, played a key role in the indulgence
industry, so Bosch, as a member of the inner elite was hardly likely to be critical of it.
I think this man is being tricked into signing a pact with the Devil, by the demon disguised as a nun.
A major preoccupation in the Middle Ages was the selling of one's soul in exchange for diabolical favours.
It looks like the man is on to them - as he is casting anxious looks at us the viewer,
as if pleading for help. The toad on the notary's lapel a sign of the Devil's henchmen we saw in the
left panel, will appear again and again in Hell. The helmeted demon offering the pen to sign has a foot,
hanging off his helmet, which could refer to an affliction caused by fungus in bread called "Ergot".
Victims suffered from burning sensations and hallucinations of being attacked by monsters.
Limbs, would rot and fall off. In Bosch's time they thought this condition was caused by possession
by demons. In the 1950s, a component from Ergot was synthesised to produce
the psychedelic drug we know today as LSD. This would inevitably lead to supposition
that Bosch painted The Garden of Earthly Delights while he was tripping.
As we've seen, the sin of lust was thought to give rise to other deadly vices.
And once again, Bosch looks to the seven deadly sins. The deadly sins, again, are not scripture, but were
described by Pope Gregory in the 6th century. By the time of Bosch they were a popular theme
in morality plays and hugely influential in art. Lust and envy are everywhere throughout the panel.
Elsewhere we find - a greedy miser is forced to excrete gold coins into a cesspool.
The glutton is forced to vomit up his food. The slothful man is visited in his bed by a demonic toad,
and the vain woman is doomed to stare for eternity at her own reflection, which we can make out in a
demon's backside. She is being grabbed from behind by another demon while a toad sits on her chest.
She closes her eyes to avoid her reflection and the horror around her. I think her resemblance to Eve is undeniable.
In the previous panel, birds fed humans, here they eat them. The owl, again makes his
appearance. This time as the Prince of Hell, with a cauldron for a crown, and jugs for shoes.
It is sitting on a giant potty chair. Human bodies are being consumed and excreted simultaneously, to go
straight into the sewer where others are already drowning in filth. In Bosch's day, the river running
through the heart of Den Bosch was an open sewer. Its stench was everywhere in the city.
We can get an insight into Bosch's working practice if we look at the infrared scan of this area.
We can see that originally Bosch sketched an enormous toad here, hanging over the Prince of Hell.
Another - perhaps better - world is suggested in the reflection in the Prince of Hell's crown.
Behind the Prince of Hell, the crescent moon on the head of a religious woman makes a reappearance.
The severed hand holding a dice is another repeated image. It references the word of
God we saw in the first panel - only now it has been corrupted and is balancing a dice,
as man plays with God's word. The overturned table is a likely reference to Christ and the moneylenders.
One gambler is nailed to the table - by the right hand he rolled the dice he lost his fortune on.
On the corner of the table, a tally of souls is being kept. This man is blindfolded and represents moral
or spiritual blindness. There is a difference between being blindfolded and being blind,
as it suggests that the figure had the capability of seeing the light but refused.
The Medieval figure "Synagogue" was a common symbolic representation of spiritually blind Jews.
Gambling leads to lust and more sin and the naked woman with her eyes lowered is holding a candlestick and beer pitcher,
identifying her as a prostitute. In the Netherlands, prostitutes use candles to entice passers-by.
A medieval precursor to the red light district. The dice on her head is the dice of a cheat
as the opposite sides cannot add up to seven. The man covering his eyes is bent over.
A pose that connects the scene - in this case their hunchbacks reference "omo incurvatis" in Se"
a theological phrase describing a life lived inward for oneself - rather than outward for God and others.
Besides them, a hare carries his bleeding victim on a pole as he sounds his horn.
He has a pair of hounds, who have caught another victim - maybe they were poachers? Hare coursing
was illegal for the lower classes. "The hunted becomes hunter" expresses the chaos of Hell.
Where the normal relationships of the world are turned upside down.
Non-religious music was considered sinful, associating it with other sins of the flesh and spirit.
Musical instruments often carried erotic connotations in works of art of the period.
A cacophonous choir is forced to sing by a demonic choir master whose tongue is
like a scale of notes. The music is written on a victim's buttocks who is crushed by a giant lute.
Some characters cover their ears as best they can, to try to avoid the horrendous noise.
Others are crushed, locked or impaled by the instruments. A man has been tied to the neck of a giant lute
and is about to be set on by a snake-like monster. A crucifixion is an unusual scene for Hell
but here we have a figure crucified on the strings of an enormous harp. To emphasise the
crucifixion, a roasted toad is offered up to him in a parody of the sponge of wine offering to Christ,
when he was crucified. A demon beats a drum while inside a man is trapped crying out in fear.
Another man has a recorder jammed up his bottom, while he is bearing the weight of a giant flute,
echoing Christ carrying the cross. It is as if Hell is mocking Christianity.
On top of the "Hurdy-Gurdy" is a blind beggar. One more turn of the handle, and the lady playing the
triangle will lose her head. The Hurdy-Gurdy was associated with beggars, who were often blind -
here, a stand-in for spiritual blindness. He is holding a begging bowl in his other hand. Bosch gives us
the minute detail we associate with the Northern Renaissance artists, and we see a metal badge on
a ribbon hanging off the bowl - which is a license to beg - granted by nobles like Henry III. Beside him
another man balancing an egg, is hunched up holding a walking cane - another "Homo Incurvertus in Se".
The trumpeter wears the Ottoman flag and heralds Satan, who fell from heaven as a star.
The most famous creation in Hell is the "Tree-man", a perfect Boschian mix of realism, metaphor
and fantasy. We have seen this figure before in an earlier drawing by Bosch,
except in the original we have a Turkish flag flying out of his backside.
The face is almost certainly a self-portrait of Bosch. His look is strangely self-conscious,
and stylistically out of keeping with the other depictions of human faces.
He could be there as a warning against vanity, His torso is a broken egg, which doubles as a
tavern in his backside. His head is topped with bagpipes - another instrument for the infernal orchestra.
Bagpipes were a symbol of lust as they resemble a scrotum and penis. Strange couples of
mixed-species circle the bagpipe. A reference to the circuit of lust on the previous panel.
Taverns are places where men and women are lured into sin, one man is sitting on an evil toad.
Above them the Turkish flag from the drawing, is now a bagpipe flag. Reminding us that the partaking
of alcohol leads to sin. The tree-man is balanced on two small boats with legs of decaying branches.
The boats or "Skiffs" suggest he is ferrying souls across the river. It is made clearer in his
original drawing. This puts the painting more along the lines of a "Last Judgment". Bosch's own painting
of that subject follows a similar structure to The Garden of Earthly Delights. The world
burns in the background as souls are being sent across the river to be judged in the foreground.
And both paintings use similar iconography. On one of his legs, a slipped bandage reveals a leper sore.
i don't think anything in this painting is without meaning and that we are seeing anti-Jewish
sentiment here. A possible interpretation of this is that he represents the Antichrist, as Bosch
has previously painted this sore on the leg of a figure in THIS painting. Identified as the Jewish antichrist.
It was a common belief - but not in the scriptures - that the Antichrist would be covered
in leper sores, and that he will be of Jewish origin. Below him Hell is literally frozen over.
A man balancing on a giant ice skate will soon collide with another in the icy water. A demon - bow
and arrows at the ready - but strangely with no arms to fire them, is giving chase to the human figures.
The horse skull is like all skulls in paintings. It is a "Memento Mori", to remind us that one day
we will die. The message is clear - "life is short, but eternity would last forever".
Below the skull a demon gleefully rings the bell, whose clappers have been replaced by a naked man.
Out of the skull's eye a devil is reeling in a key. The key has always puzzled me, as we are so
used to seeing keys as representing the keys to Heaven - a Medieval interpretation was that
God gave Satan the keys to the bottomless pit, and this is where that comes from. Theologically
it is ambiguous, but aesthetically it makes sense, as immediately above it new souls are
ushered into Hell. The key is there to remind us that the gates of Hell have been opened.
The lamp here is extremely prominent. I think this section is reserved for the soldiers that arrested
Christ holding lanterns and carrying weapons. They are being burned alive in the lantern as
punishment. The leader, whose flag bears the Devil's toad holds a chalice. While next to it we see a
wafer, a clear reference to the body and blood of Christ. He is being eaten alive on a large disc,
which in turn resembles the one in the first panel. The soldiers are being skewered by demons.
The character in white with a stereotypical big nose is behind them climbing a ladder, and could
be Judas about to hang himself. The ominous looking ears are a war machine, crushing people in its wake.
Like the blind metaphors throughout Hell, the knife cutting through the ears would reference deafness
to the word of God. But the similarity to the male sexual organ is also unmistakable. The knife holds
a symbol that looks like a letter "M" or "B" which has confused historians for centuries. The truth
is pretty mundane: Den Bosch was known throughout Europe for its manufacture of knives, and in the
1990s archaeologists found a knife dated to the 15th century which has the same shape and mark
used here by Bosch. Even ordinary household implements are turning on us. Cities in Europe
were tinderboxes and fires were common. This is the climax of the painting - a realistic portrayal
of a city on fire - that may well have been based on Bosch's childhood memories. The hostile army
is seizing the city, led by a horned demon. We see people trying to escape the fire using ladders
or jumping into the dirty waters of the canal to certain death. Crowds of people are being pushed
down to the riverbank to be transported across the icy river to be judged and punished. This is a Hell
that the Medieval mind would have understood on so many levels. Death was all around them.
Finally a tiny detail. At the apex of the volcano we can just make out two figures fighting.
One, a demon in black and one, a human in white - this is the fight that Bosch's
contemporaries would have seen as a lifelong battle. The fight between good and evil.
Bosch's inclusion in Henry III's collection would have boosted his reputation, and his infamy
spread throughout Europe. We know the painting was popular as so many copies of it were commissioned.
Some in Bosch's lifetime and some even by his own workshop. Paintings were an expensive investment so
it must have been extremely well known to have been copied so much. There were also tapestries
made of it after Bosch's death. Henry III died in 1538 and the painting was inherited by his
nephew William, who was a Protestant reformer and therefore an enemy of the state. His property was
confiscated by the Catholic Duke of Alba, who brought The Garden of Earthly Delights to Spain.
It was soon sold to King Philip II, a keen collector of Bosch - known as El Bosco in Spain.
Philip owned many of Bosch's paintings and it is the reason why spain has such a large collection.
Philip was a staunch Catholic, defender of the faith, and a leading figure of the
Catholic Counter-Reformation. He also used a ruthless Spanish inquisition in order to keep
his subjects in line - and root out heretical thought. It is difficult as modern viewers
to look at this painting and not see it as surrealism or a product of the subconscious,
not see it as a sexual utopia, a critique of Religion or even a psychedelic romp.
It is why so many bizarre theories have emerged. But whatever its true meaning is - and will never know,
just by virtue of being in the Royal collection of the deeply conservative Philip II, it is
clear that The Garden of Earthly Delights was a reflection of the religious thinking of the day.
Philip kept it in the Escorial, the monastery that doubled as his royal residence,
where it was known as "El modrono", or the strawberry. It stayed at Escorial for
over 300 years, until it was moved to the Prado museum in 1939, along with other works by Bosch.
This film is only one approach to the painting. It is difficult to ascribe meaning to all the specific elements.
However, I decided to take the approach that viewers in Henry III's court might have:
To treat it as an intellectual puzzle with a moralistic streak,. A painting that is there to create a conversation.
If you have theories or ideas I'd love to hear about them in the comments.