The Garden of Earthly Delights
The Garden of Earthly Delights
Hieronymus Bosch · c. 1490 to 1500
01
Three panels. Paradise. Pleasure. Hell.
First recorded in 1517. A palace in Brussels.
Closed, it shows a grey world. Open, this.
02
Eden.
God brings Eve to Adam.
Everything is still calm.
03
The centre is crowded.
Naked bodies. Giant fruit. Giant birds.
04
Then hell. It's loud.
A harp. A lute. People strung through them.
Music is the punishment.
05
One man lies pinned under the lute.
Notes are painted on his backside.
In 2014 a student transcribed them. It went viral.
All three panels.
Uncropped.
“Ipse dixit et facta sunt. Ipse mandavit et creata sunt.”
8 July 1593
Philip II of Spain bought it at a sale in 1591.
He sent it to his monastery, El Escorial.
It stayed there for 340 years.
In 1933 it went to the Prado.
Hieronymus Bosch
Netherlandish · Early Netherlandish · c. 1450 to 1516
Sources · 5