Hieronymus Bosch (Jeroen van Aken, ca 1450-1516), The Garden of Earthly Delights, triptych (ca 1500), oil on panel, central panel 220x195 cm, wings 220x97 cm.
Prado Museum, Madrid
The left wing and the central panel of the Garden of Earthly Delights can be seen as an allegorical illustration of Earth, the first days after Creation, with in the central panel the first appearances of sinful behaviour, whereas by contrast the right wing depicts Hell straightforwardly as ultimate punishment for a generalized pattern of sinful behaviour of mankind.
The central panel depicts a park-like landscape populated by happily unselfconscious naked figures, members of all different races, who feel utterly at home in nature since they are evidently an integral part of the natural world themselves. In a kind of childhood of the world and throughout the entire puzzle of drawings, nude unhampered men and women nibble at giant fruits, consort with birds and animals, frolic in gleaming waters and indulge in a wide variety of amorous delectations and sexual encounters in a carefree mood. White immaterial naked figures, accentuated by an occasional black-skinned figure, are filling the world with natural erotic play, and sexuality which inspires them appears to be pure bliss, people having become one with animals and plants in vegetative innocence. However, this apotheosis of apparent innocent sexuality is interspersed with numerous irritating factors of perverse behaviour. In this sense are pictured the couple enclosed in a bubble at the lower left, the pair nearby concealed in a mussel shell, the man plunged head first into the water and shielding his private parts with his hands and at the lower right, the youth who thrusts some flowers into the rectum of his companion.
In the middle ground, men are riding horses, unicorns and other four-legged animals and revolve in a wide circle around a pool with seductive bathing maidens, the two sexes being as yet carefully segregated. In the centre behind the pool, an enormous blue globe rises out of a lake, with at either side huge rosy-blue pavilions of pleasure. Inside an opening on the globe just above the water level, a man touches a woman’s private parts with her consent, while nearby a loving pair is swimming in front of them. At the turn of the fifteenth century, animals often served to symbolize the lower appetites of humankind and the act of riding beasts was commonly employed as a metaphor for the sexual act, which was seen in the Middle Ages, at best a necessary evil, at worst a deadly sin, the deadly sin of Lust.
The carnal life is also alluded to in metaphorical and symbolic terms, for instance strawberries that figure prominently in the landscape, symbolizing here the fleeting nature of fleshly pleasure. Among other metaphors, hollow fruits and fruit peelings into which some of the couples have crept, are erotic symbols inspired by popular sayings and slang expressions of Bosch’s time, symbols of sin, like was the fruit that brought about the fall of Adam.
For several details of the painting, see next pictures
