the Garden of Earthly Delights which

sits in the collection of the Museo del

Prado in Madrid was painted by the Dutch
Renaissance master Hieronymus Bosch the
triptych has been thrilling and
confusing audiences ever since some
consider the work to be a warning about
the dangers of carnal sin others see it
as a portrait of a lost paradise
whatever bashas intention it is now
celebrated as a masterpiece of the
imagination the work is made of three
panels of oak the center panel is 87 by
77 inches and two side panels each
measure 87 by 38 point 4 inches it is
not signed by Bosch the side panels
close to show an exterior panel painted
in green gray grisaille depicting the
3rd day of the creation of the world the
figure of God appears in the top left
corner and across the top of the two
panels are written in Latin the words
for he spake and it was done and for he
commanded and they were created the left
panel illustrates God presenting Eve to
Adam in the Garden of Eden creatures
real and fanciful roamed the landscape
the spiraling Birds in the top left are
said to have been influenced by Leonardo
da Vinci's studies on flight
the center panel features a bacchanal of
nudity
devilry and surprisingly strawberries in
fact these symbolize the ephemeral
pleasures of tasting forbidden fruit the
right panel shows he'll a nocturnal
Inferno of death and punishment
following the Carnival of lust at its
center is the tree man a surreal figure
formed of decaying trunks and a cracked
egg this character first featured in a
pen and bister drawing by Bosch from the
1470s
the work was commissioned by Engelbert
ii of nasa and has passed through the
hands of many royal collectors including
william the first of orange and the
third Duke of Alba who brought it to
Spain in the 20th century the Garden of
Earthly Delights influenced the
surrealist movement the work is echoed
in Max Ernst and through amorphic flora
and Salvador Dali's elephants and
giraffes for the Surrealists Bosch was
the first modern artist
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