The Garden of Earthly Delights
The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch is a piece believed to be created in around 1504. It was first documented in the House of of Nassau in Brussels one year after the death of Bosch. The Garden of Earthly Delights is a triptych, a piece of artwork divided into three sections, and one of Bosch’s most well known and ambitious pieces.
The Garden of Earthly Delights is a piece depicting three different Biblical scenes. The left portion is believed to depict a scene from the Garden of Eden, when God presents Eve to Adam. In this section there is also a lot going on in the background there are many different types of animals, a dragon tree, to the interesting fountain in the center of the section.
The center section of The Garden of Earthly Delights is a little harder to explain because there is significantly more going on than in the other sections. There doesn’t really seem to be any sort of order to this part, but it is believed that this section is a series of small motifs, where proportion is nonexistent.
Then the right section seems to be Bosch’s view of Hell, shown with the darkness in the horizon to the burning buildings. This section is a major contrast to the liveliness and warmth of the first two sections.
The Garden of Earthly Delights has many influences from humanism. The see the influences of humanism in the middle section because it depicts everyone the same, which seemed to one of the fundamental ideas of the humanism movement. I also see a major influence when you look at the piece as a whole, humanism believes that it is man’s privilege to choose their nature. The painting in a way shows the extremes of peoples nature on the right and left side and the center represents the median of the two.
I see The Garden of Earthly Delights as the center representing humans and the right and left sides representing heaven and hell. At the same time I also see a progression through the different sections. The left representing the complete innocence, the middle section representing less innocence, then finally in the left section complete and utter chaos. Similar to how we age starting out completely innocent or a child, grow up a little and become less innocent like a teenager, then as we continue to grow up we lose the complete innocence we once had similar to adulthood.
I found this piece appealing mainly because this piece can be looked at as a whole or in its individual sections and the meanings change based on how you view it.
September 22, 2009 at 6:38 pm
Definitely an interesting painting. I also think that it is interesting that humanism paints a picture of human thought, virtue and action but this painting really takes it to an extreme. It shows a kind of then-now-later picture of how that thought, virtue and action can change. Thanks for the information on the painting.
September 25, 2009 at 10:38 pm
I found this work of art very appealing also. I like the way it progresses from the Garden of Eden to Hell. There is nothing like a moral just thrown at you as a picture story. You have really gone into great detail about the triptych and it is much appreciated and I like how you can perceive it and apply it as humans growing up and losing our innocence.
Your discussion about it being humanistic is dead on and I like the way you have added about man choosing their nature.
I was wondering if this work of art could possibly mean how humans were progressing to hell. I believe this is part of the Northern Renaissance as this comes from Hieronymus Bosch.