Arq. Hugo Ferreira Quirós – Uruguay
Great will have been the impression of King Philip II when he first saw the masterpiece of “Bosch”. As an almighty monarch, he did not hesitate to acquire said work and donate it to the realization of his efforts, the Royal Monastery of San Lorenzo del Escorial.
It is an oil on oak wood composed in a triptych whose central panel is the size of the sum of its two extreme panels.
Interior view of the Triptych currently called “The Garden of Delights” painted between 1490 and 1500 by “Bosch”.
In the Europe of 1500s, it was common to make triptychs that were normally kept closed and occasionally opened to a select and cultured public. Some were intended for an ecclesiastical altarpiece but the one analyzed today was a secular commission. Like its author, not much information is known to explain the subject of this great work.
The author of this piece is Jheronimus van Aken, famous Dutch painter who adopts a pseudonym related to his origin, the city of Hertogenbosch, forming the name of Jheronimus Bosch. By Castilianize the word Bosch, we currently know it as “El Bosco”.
There are different interpretations of reading the triptych whose title we do not know, and that from Fray José de Sigüenza, Librarian of El Escorial, we know it as “The Garden of Delights”.
Some scholars speak of a proto surrealism. Others give it an esoteric conception, with hermetic knowledge. Personally, I adhere to those who maintain that the inspiration for this work is of a moralizing Christian character. According to my opinion, the author is positioned in a posture of Demiurge, of the Creator and that is why we must read and understand it as if Bosch were looking at us from the very bottom of the central panel to whose right is Paradise and to whose left is Hell.
The most common view we see of the work is a profusely colorful central panel flanked by two side panels where two scenes are opposed. Less known is the fact that the side panels are painted on both sides, so that if we close the triptych, we get a single composition around a primeval world. Behind closed doors we witness an archetypal earthly world where we can visualize on the left God the Father who is creating the world.
It is a primitive world, still in the process of creation, because only the mineral kingdom and the vegetable kingdom are embodied. Neither animals nor human beings have yet appeared. Being a world in gestation, the painter opts for monochromatic tones in the grayscale, a technique that is called Grisaille. Dark and heavy clouds connote the turbulence of this creative process where normal plant species are born and develop on earth, as well as other fantastic ones. Outside the sphere of the world reigns absolute darkness. This monochromatic scene contrasts with the color of the interior triptych composition.
If we open the triptych and analyze the structuring of the work starting with the central panel, we can see that there is a composition based on a vertical axial symmetry although we can also divide this panel into four quadrants. If to the upper half, composed of the two quadrants above, we trace its diagonals we will obtain the central point in the blue font that has a leading role. On the other hand, in the lower half chaos and vice reign, so the vision is unstructured. If we look for its golden dimensions in the upper half, we will obtain two horizontal lines that frame banks, nearby horizons and frame the three most important objects in this area of the work, which are the central sphere and the two fantastic constructions that are located on its sides.
If we consider the panel on our left dedicated to Paradise, we also observe the presence of an axial axis of symmetry and the division into four quadrants with half horizontally. We can also project the golden auxiliary lines of the composition of the central panel. In the lower sector of the paradise panel, God the Father commands creation flanked on his right by Adam and on his left by Eve.
In the panel on our right that represents Hell we can also divide it into four quadrants and the sectors framed by the golden dimensions of one half are in the lower half of said panel, right in the area where a monarch-beast engulfs and defecates the damned. At the top of this panel, the «Tree Man» appears, the main and largest character in the entire work is in the vertical axial center of it.
At the chromatic level, the Paradise panel is bright, with greens, blues and pinks predominating. By not having warm vivid colors, he may want to express to us a certain primal innocence or absence of sin.
On the other hand, in the central panel the greens are contracted by intense reds that denote lust and carnal sin.
Also, from the chromatic point of view, the panel on the right, corresponding to Hell, differs markedly from the previous two, by a predominant darkness where night reigns and the hosts of Hell make theirs with the sentenced.
Bosch contrasts primitive architectures typical of the order of Nature, present in the panel of Paradise, persisting with greater complexity in the manifested world, but that in Hell become constructions of our sinful world and that are burned on the day of the Last Judgment.
It is worth highlighting the fanciful imagination of Bosch in capturing fantastic architectures based on prehistoric Cromlechs combined with rock formations and fanciful plant species.
Much we could analyze of each of the three interior panels but by way of synthesis we will say that in the table of Paradise the archetypal fountain has the same coloration as the robe of God the Father, therefore we can deduce that from there emanates life and it is precisely in the Center of the panel that there is a hollow sphere whose origin is an owl, perhaps representing the mystery. God the Father is one of only two characters who look us directly in the eye, the other is the “tree man” of the Hell panel. Both God and the primeval source divide in this panel, the two extremes of the duality of the world. On the left everything is active, positive and harmonious. The ecosystem feeds back, the plants grow vigorously, the animals drink water from the source of life and at the top the divine architecture gives harmony to creation. On the right everything is passive, with negative connotations, even within paradise and with underlying insinuations of the feminine nature such as the lake that perhaps symbolizes the female pubis. A giraffe that is frizzy and ready to attack suggests instinctive anger. In turn, the author captures a face sketched with natural shapes that recalls the temptations, passions and low feelings of the human being, that is why it is suggested with vegetables and vermin.
In the central panel Lust is symbolized by the color red, present in the fruits of sin and in a kind of tree carp. Hundreds of human beings and animals act at pleasure as if there were not tomorrow, in a scene that without being explicit suggests perversity. In this case the scale of birds, animals and humans is not of interest, because what counts are their acts that, being freed in their own judgment, are sinful in the eyes of God. The theme of the central panel is a denunciation of the corruption of the world.
The primeval source of life has become cracked, with blue colors, pink and red touches that still emanate life but not with the purity of yesteryear. Different spawns tell us about interbreeding of species, or of the original sin committed again and again that are degrading Paradise, turning it into our decadent world.
Below the lake where the four primeval rivers flow, living beings have made a pond to bathe their earthly pleasures. Apparently, everything is allowed, and everything happens with impunity as if God did not exist. Despite Adam and Eve’s initial embarrassment at discovering themselves naked, sinners maintain nakedness and do not hesitate to commit heretical acts. This panel is a denunciation of the contemporary society of the painter.
This panel is a denunciation of the painter’s contemporary society.
In the face of so much scandal, the actions lead to the entrance to Hell, the panel that is on our right. This is the most disturbing sector of the whole and perhaps that is why it is also the most attractive. It is a Hell where the damned will inevitably end up, those who had debauchery in the earthly world. However, it is not a Hell of suffering and lamentations, because all possible punishments are assumed with a certain naturalness and uneasiness.
When we look at this panel immediately our eyes shift to that “Tree Man” who has his butt broken and who, like God the Father, looks at us questioning us. Some researchers want to see in it a self-portrait of Bosch, but this has not been confirmed. Even with a broken butt, his gaze is not one of suffering but of resignation and a certain tranquility. That expression is puzzling.
According to some biographers during The Bosch childhood a terrible fire occurred in his hometown, impression that the definitively marked and imagining this incident as a living image of Hell. We can observe here terribly attractive scenes where shadows predominate, whose silhouettes are cut between the flames and smoke. Hellish armies cross bridges over lava lakes. It seems clear that Bosch Intended condemn to the musicians directly to the Inferno, for presumably all its charms and instruments are objects of perdition. Starting with a knife that cuts two ears, cutting off the auditory sense so that they do not hear sinful musical compositions. In revenge for the audacity of the musicians, various musical instruments appear as instruments of torture. A strange bird-headed monarch devours a person and is seated on a period bedroom toilet, which in turn contains a bag into which his S’s fall, filtering the wretched who fall into a bottomless pit.
Bosch uses as torture resources objects introduced into people’s anuses as an expression of maximum suffering, the worst being what happens to the tree man, who as we have already seen, has his butt broken. These legs are configured as tree roots and supported by two boats as if balancing in the mud. Thousands are punished and thousands are the forms of punishment. A female pig wears a nun’s headdress and harasses an underdog. The moral seems to be that music will inevitably lead the human being to his or her downfall.
Many more things we could analyze of this great work of universal Art, but these notes are enough to get a global idea of it. Let us bear in mind that Bosch was a Christian belonging to a traditional brotherhood of Flanders, who denounced excesses and practiced piety. Although this work is tragic, it is undertaken with a certain self-confidence, with a certain irony, with a certain humor and with a certain preference for the grotesque.
For this reason, his compositions were taken as references by the Surrealist movement. It is possible to identify its influence on some resources used by Dalí for example.
The most striking thing is that this work was made 400 years before Surrealism. At a time when Columbus was making his expeditions to America, Bosch undertook this great work of art that captures a perverse reality and suggests a warning to the vicious. Perhaps it is the product of dreamlike visions, unsettling dreams, mystical visualizations and exuberant creativity. However, he had the talent to be able to capture it with mastery.
The Garden of Delights does not have a unitary reading but is designed as for a thorough study where only by stopping at every detail do you get to fully understand what its author wants to express to us.
Unfortunately, when we normally go to the Prado Museum the work always has a lot of people around it and it is not possible to stop, with enough time, to have a comprehensive reading of the work. Go these words to “The Garden of Delights” by the great painter Jheronimus Bosch, better known in Spanish with El Bosco.