Details from Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights (ca. 1500)
Painted sometime between 1490 and 1510, The Garden of Earthly Delights is perhaps Hieronymus Bosch’s most ambitious work. Formed of three panels and totalling almost four metres in length, the triptych is a dizzyingly detailed and delightfully surreal work, the possible meanings of which have kept scholars busy for centuries. The left panel — sometimes referred to as the Joining of Adam and Eve — is home to a paradise-like scene from the Garden of Eden, most likely of that moment in which God presents Eve to Adam. Although it clearly has its routes in the Biblical story, Bosch’s particular take on it — with its strange beasts, Adam’s almost-lustful gaze – is unlike anything else depicted in the history of Western art. The middle panel, the largest of the three, seems to continue from the “first” (the triptych is most likely meant to be read from left to right), with their skylines matching up. The settings also seem to echo each other, though the middle panel is quite different in tone. Here the scene is one of unbridled