The Garden of Earthly Delights

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The Garden of Earthly Delights is the center panel of a triptych by Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch. Painted around 1504, The Garden of Earthly Delights is perhaps his best-known work. It depicts the Creation of Earth and the infiltration of sin into mankind. It is currently hanging in the Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain. The title is a later attribution. It was registered in the inventory of the Spanish crown as "the picture with the strawberry-tree fruits".

The Garden of Earthly Delights is an oil painting on wood panels. The exterior shutters are grissaille on panel. The centre panel measures 220 by 195 cm, and the wings measure 220 by 95 cm. Although the triptych format was standard for church altarpieces at the time, it is likely that The Garden of Earthly Delights was produced for the private enjoyment of a noble family.

The Garden of Earthly Delights in its entirety can be read from exterior to interior and then left to right, featuring a full narrative realized from all of the surfaces. Chronologically, the creation of the world becomes imparted onto the creation of Man, followed by earthly sin, culminating in damnation. The left interior panel of Eden depicts animals living together with humans without interaction. Curiously, death exists, exemplified by a cat carrying a mouse and a lion eating a deer or antelope. Moving to the center panel, animals and humans begin to coexist and intermingle. On the right side, animals torture humans, completing a transformation of “simple” creatures into anthropomorphic superiors.^[1]

The exterior (shutters)

The left panel: The Earthly Paradise (Garden of Eden)

The centre panel: Garden of Earthly Delights (Ecclesia's Paradise)

The right panel: Hell

1 Exterior
2 Interior
3 Details
4 The Garden of Earthly Delights in popular culture
5 See also
6 References

[edit] Exterior

When closed, the shutters depict an image of the earth as a flat disc within a sphere with the land floating upon a sea. Although the earth is bright from sunlight slipping through receding storm clouds, strange organic and even obscene forms are seen rising from the ground. A small representation of God the Father appears enthroned in the outer firmament at the upper left corner. At the top of the panels is a quote from Psalm 33:9 of the Bible: "For he spake and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast." Some critics have taken the verse to imply that the scene is one from Creation; others hold that it is of the receding waters of the Flood during the days of Noah. The interior triptych is thus interpreted to represent the days of sexual fornication prior to the Flood. Other critics have supposed that the outer shutters represent a metaphor for the last days and not a specific moment in Biblical history. It is argued that there is no ark or human and animal corpses present on the outer shutters, and that it is therefore unlikely that it could be representing the specific Flood of Noah. Yet another interpretation describes the picture as depicting the third day of the Creation of Earth.

The shutters open to reveal the three-paneled triptych.

[edit] Interior

[edit] Garden of Eden

The leftmost panel features the Garden of Eden, the Tree of Knowledge (the one at the middle of the right edge), and God (in the form of Jesus), presenting Eve to Adam.

[edit] Garden of Earthly Delights

The centre panel details the descent of humanity into sin, featuring giant birds, abundant fruit, and many people frolicking nude in a lush, green field.

[edit] The Hell

Finally, the rightmost panel illustrates Hell. People are treated to various nightmarish torments including being eaten by a giant bird and defecating coins. The seven deadly sins are featured prominently throughout.

The bird sitting in the chair eating the man is supposed to be Satan himself.
The face staring out from under the dish holding the pink bagpipes is said to be a portrait of Bosch himself.
The woman near the bottom, under the bird's chair, in the clutches of a monster, staring into a mirror (which is also the rear end of some creature), is guilty of the deadly sin of pride (vanity).
The person defecating coins into the pit under the bird's chair is guilty of the deadly sin of avarice.
The man nearby, vomiting into the same pit, is guilty of the deadly sin of gluttony.

[edit] Details

The woman near the bottom, under the bird's chair, in the clutches of a monster, staring into a mirror (which is also the rear end of some creature), is guilty of the deadly sin of pride (vanity).

The face staring out from under the dish holding the pink bagpipes is said to be a portrait of Bosch himself.

The person defecating coins into the pit under the bird's chair is guilty of the deadly sin of avarice. The man nearby, vomiting into the same pit, is guilty of the deadly sin of gluttony.

[edit] The Garden of Earthly Delights in popular culture

The painting (or details from it) has been used as the cover of at least six albums:
- American psychedelic folk band Pearls Before Swine's 1967 album, One Nation Underground
- Rock band Deep Purple's eponymous third album, Deep Purple
- Avant-garde heavy metal band Celtic Frost's third album, Into the Pandemonium
- Detroit Based Acid-Rap group, Natas used the whole piece as the cover art for their 1999 album, WWW.com .
- Music band Dead Can Dance used a detail of the painting as the cover for their 1990 album Aion.
- The interior artwork of Australian duo Savage Garden's eponymous debut album featured details from the painting.
A detail from Bosch's Garden of Eden panel is used on the cover of the paperback edition of Margaret Atwood's novel, Oryx and Crake, a novel depicting a post-apocalyptic world populated with flora and fauna similar in description to those in Bosch's triptych.
Norwegian Avant-garde group, When used it for the inside of "Prefab Wreckage" and wrote a song about it called, "Bosch: 8 levels of Hell"
American psychedelic pop band the United States of America recorded a song called The Garden Of Earthly Delights for their eponymous album.
Ian Watson's science fiction novel The Gardens of Delight features a planet closely based on the three panels of Bosch's triptych, which is gradually revealed to be an allegory of spiritual alchemy. The planet was created by a powerful extraterrestrial being, using ideas provided by a human space traveller who is obsessed with alchemy.
In The Simpsons episode Bart Gets Hit by a Car, Bart briefly visits the Underworld, which is depicted as a parody of the "Hell" panel.
Doom metal band Cathedral released an album entitled The Garden of Unearthly Delights in September 2005.
The video for the song Until It Sleeps, from the heavy metal band Metallica, is based upon the "Hell" panel. The man eating bird is featured in the video.
British band XTC recorded a song named "The Garden Of Earthly Delights", which is the opening track on their 1989 album Oranges and Lemons.
The video for "Spokes on the Wheel of Torment" by Buckethead is essientally an animated version of the Hell panel.
Author Michael Connelly began releasing a collection in 1992 with a main character sharing the same name as the painter.
English rock singer and songwriter Graham Parker recorded a song called "OK, Hieronymus," for The Mona Lisa's Sister (1988); The song includes the line "I know where your bloody roses bloom."
The Dutch beer, Tilburg's Dutch Brown Ale, uses a detail of the seated Devil from the painting on their box and label art.
Author Christopher Rice used the painting as a central theme in his novel The Snow Garden.
Author Joyce Carol Oates uses the title for the first book of her Wonderland Quartet.
In the Garden of Unearthly Delights: Paintings of Josh Kirby is the title of a book about the art of Josh Kirby (most well-known for painting the book covers for Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels).
The band D*Note released a track called The Garden of Earthly Delights in 1995.
The picture can be seen haning over Annie's bed in a scene of the movie What Dreams May Come (film) which deals with heaven and hell