On the left is Eden; in the centre a strange garden where countless naked men and women indulge in pleasure; on the right a Hell of torture and monsters. Bosch's triptych teems with hundreds of details, and in five centuries no one has fully decoded its meaning.
Key facts
- Artist
- Hieronymus Bosch1450–1516 · Netherlandish
- Date
- c. 1490–1510
- Period
- Northern Renaissance1430–1580
- Medium
- Oil on oak panels (triptych)
- Dimensions
- 205.5 × 384.9 cm
- Location
- Museo del Prado Madrid, Spain
Actual size
Compared with an adult 170 cm tall
Palette
#7E7748#9B956A#615930#3F3F27#1A1A0FBackground
The triptych was probably made for the Nassau family in Brussels, as a conversation piece for their palace rather than a church altarpiece. In the late sixteenth century Philip II of Spain acquired it for the Escorial; it now hangs in the Prado in Madrid.
The work had no title; “The Garden of Earthly Delights” was given later. When the wings are closed, their outer faces show in grey monochrome the third day of Creation: inside a transparent sphere, the earth has just sprouted plants, before animals or people exist.
Bosch lived at the turn from the late Middle Ages to the Renaissance. The Reformation had not yet begun, but the corruption of the Church and the sins of the world were burning topics. His work combines traditional moral warning with unprecedented imagination.
Technique & composition
The three panels, nearly four metres wide together, read from left to right: creation, fall, punishment. and the centre share a horizon, so Eden flows into the garden of delights, suggesting how sin spreads.
With tiny brushstrokes Bosch painted hundreds of figures, animals and bizarre structures in jewel-bright colour. is dominated by pink, pale blue and bright green, light and festive; sinks into darkness lit only by fire.
There is no single focal point; the eye wanders endlessly and finds something new at every look. This encyclopaedic composition deeply influenced Pieter Bruegel the Elder.
Details
Symbolism
Paradise
In the left wing God presents the newly created Eve to Adam, as if officiating at a wedding. Look closer, though: animals are already preying on one another, and creatures lurk in the pool beneath , hinting that evil is already present.
Fleeting pleasures
In the centre, men and women frolic with giant strawberries, cherries and birds. In the culture of the time such fruit were linked with lust and short-lived pleasure: the strawberry is delicious but soon rots, like earthly joys.
Musical Hell
In the right wing, musical instruments become instruments of torture: sinners are strung on a harp and pinned beneath a lute, perhaps punishment for idle revelry. Nearby, on a high chair devours sinners and excretes them into a pit below.
The Tree Man
At the heart of Hell stands , his body a broken eggshell, his legs dead tree trunks, a disc on his head, looking back at us. Many scholars think the melancholy face is Bosch's self-portrait.
Stories
- Did you know?
In Hell a sinner has a line of music written on his buttocks. In 2014 an American student transcribed and performed it; the internet dubbed it “the 500-year-old butt song”.
- Did you know?
The Surrealist Salvador Dalí revered Bosch as a forerunner; both filled their work with dreamlike, grotesque imagery.
- Did you know?
The Prado displays the triptych free-standing so visitors can walk behind it and see the Creation scene on the outer wings.
Legacy
The Garden of Earthly Delights is one of the earliest great works of fantastic art in the West. It shaped Pieter Bruegel the Elder's crowded panoramas and, four centuries later, was hailed by the Surrealists as a precursor.
Today its monsters and strange structures appear on album covers and in films, video games and fashion, an inexhaustible source of imagination.
