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| The Garden of Earthly Delights - detail, center panel |
Unpublished manuscript of a lecture,
given at Central European University,Budapest,
on Dec. 8, 2011.
Drawing on his knowledge of history and faith, Central European University's Matthias Riedl offered up a new interpretation of Hieronymus Bosch's famed triptych.
The Garden of Earthly Delights
Evidently, in a closed condition, the triptych does not display much delight at all. What we see instead is a grayish pre-Copernican representation of the cosmos; the yet unfinished cosmos on the third or forth day of creation. We see the Earth as flat disc, contained in a glass-like sphere. This is probably an allusion toPsalm 33 which says that God “gathers together as in a bottle all the waters of the sea.” The same Psalm 33 is also quoted in the inscription on the painting which reads:
Ipse dixit, et facta sunt: Ipse mandavit, et creata sunt
, "He spoke,and they were made: he commanded, and they were created."
Evidently, in a closed condition, the triptych does not display much delight at all. What we see instead is a grayish pre-Copernican representation of the cosmos; the yet unfinished cosmos on the third or forth day of creation. We see the Earth as flat disc, contained in a glass-like sphere. This is probably an allusion toPsalm 33 which says that God “gathers together as in a bottle all the waters of the sea.” The same Psalm 33 is also quoted in the inscription on the painting which reads:
Ipse dixit, et facta sunt: Ipse mandavit, et creata sunt
, "He spoke,and they were made: he commanded, and they were created."
The Garden of Earthly Delights
-commentaries by Lee van Laer
Hieronymus Bosch's "The Garden of Earthly Delights" stands as one of the greatest masterpieces of the Northern Renaissance —or, indeed, any age. I first saw the painting at the age of nine in the Prado Museum in Madrid, where — to the consternation of my parents — I spent several hours inspecting it. Even at that age, it made a deep impression on me, because I understood that it was trying to convey something extraordinary.
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BBC episode with a full examination of Hieronymous Bosch's
"Garden of Earthly Delights."
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