The Garden of Earthly Delights 1490-1510 by Hieronymous Bosch

The Garden of Earthly Delights 1490-1510 by Hieronymous Bosch
Year: 1490-1510 | Medium: Oil on oak panels | Location: Museo del Prado, Madrid

Of all the works mentioned above, this one perhaps takes the cake as the one with the most things going on at once. Hieronymous Bosch, an Early Netherlandish master painter, created The Garden of Earthly Delights triptych oil painting between 1490 and 1510. Also hanging in the Museo del Prado, it’s an oil painting on three oak panels meant to be read from left to right, and that show scenes in Eden, the garden of earthly delights (perhaps warning its viewers of human temptations), and Hell. Outside, when the panels are closed, is a depiction of what is said to be the creation of the world.

For years, The Garden of Earthly Delights has been studied by scholars and interpreted differently, based on symbolic systems including the alchemical, heretical, astrological, subconscious, and folkloric. The piece inspired many later artists to quote or incorporate elements of it, including Pieter Bruegel the Elder, David Teniers the Younger, early surrealists like Joan Miró and Salvador Dalí, and later René Magritte and Max Ernst.