Hieronymus Bosch is often regarded as one of the forerunners
of Surrealism, and it is not difficult to see why. His highly detailed
paintings depict human beings and animals in fantastical and nightmarish
situations that, because of his use of translucent oil glazes, produce a
strange sense of reality. This is the
key to Bosch’s work, because he used his art to offer a moral message.
Hieronymus (whose family name was van Aken) was born in
about 1450 in the north Dutch town of ‘s-Hertogenbosch, which accounts for the
name by which he is generally known. He spent virtually the whole of his life
(he died in 1516) in ‘s-Hertogenbosch. He was deeply religious, and much of his
work is religious in nature and was commissioned either by wealthy noblemen who
sought rich decoration coupled with moral instruction, or Church organizations
such as the Brotherhood of Our Lady, of which Bosch was a member.
The Garden of Earthly Delights probably dates from around
1504. It is a triptych painted in oils on hinged wood panels. There are
actually four paintings, because the two wing panels, when folded inwards
across the central panel, reveal a fourth scene split between the two panel
backs.
The left panel depicts the Garden of Eden and the right
panel is a scene of Hell. The large central scene (which measures 87 by 38
inches) is of mankind between the two extremes. Eden has been abandoned and
everyone is on their way to Hell. One possible scenario is that the central
panel depicts the world before God sent the Genesis Flood to destroy it, which
would fit with interpretations of the “fourth scene” as representing the Flood
itself.
One could spend hours examining everything that is going on
in this painting, and even more time trying to work out what it all means. Some
sort of sexual orgy is in progress, with naked human figures engaged in an
extraordinary range of weird activities. The strangeness is accented by the
huge birds, fish and fruits that dwarf the humans and are sometimes seen
consuming them or engaging in sexual activity. A man carries a huge mussel
shell on his back, in which another man is trapped. A man and a woman are seen
inside a bubble on the back of an imaginary sea creature. In the middle
distance there is a parade of people riding on the backs of a huge range of
creatures including pigs, goats, unicorns, and others that are part-animal and
part-bird. Some of the people are holding huge fish as they ride. In all, there
are about a thousand human figures in the whole work, plus all the animals,
birds and other life forms, some of which would not be out of place in a work
by Salvador Dali.
It should be noted that the left and central panels have a
similar basic structure of a scene with land in the foreground and background
and a lake in the middle distance, although the parallels are not exact in
terms of the relative positioning of the lakes . A central globular object from
which a slender tower emerges is a feature of both lakes. However, everything
in the Garden of Eden is in proportion, which is certainly not so in the
“earthly delights” scene. The darkly painted right panel depicting the horrors
of Hell is another matter, with little resemblance to the structure of the
other two, although the fantasy buildings in the distance of the central panel
have been replaced by a burning city that looks remarkably like depictions of
blitzed cities from World War Two.
It is impossible to make sense of everything in this work,
although it is clearly intended as a powerful allegory of the sins and ravings
of degenerate humankind. The modern viewer must bear in mind that The Garden of
Earthly Delights was painted more than 500 years ago in an age when much of the
world was still unknown by Europeans and people believed in the reality of
unicorns, witches and demons. What may look unreal and fantastical to someone
in the 21st century was very much part of the worldview of most
people in the early 16th century. However, whatever century the
viewer belongs to, the central message that mankind is corrupt and deserves its
inevitable damnation is clear enough.
This extraordinary work, which is probably the best known
painting by Hieronymus Bosch, may be seen at the Prado, Madrid.
© John Welford
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