The Most Ambiguous Painting in Art History

Why does Hieronymus Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights feel so strange? In this video we look at the sources of his inspiration, the triptych’s structure, and how to read its composition.

We’ll take a close look at Bosch’s triptych The Garden of Earthly Delights — from possible sources of its imagery (bestiaries, illuminated manuscripts, and the religious and allegorical traditions of the Northern Renaissance) to the structural and compositional devices that make the work so expressive and ambiguous. We’ll discuss how the left, central and right panels interact with one another, which compositional axes and focal points Bosch uses, and why many symbols operate on several levels at once.

Links to analyses of other Bosch works:
“The Haywain”     • Explaining Hieronymus Bosch: Between Angel...  
“The Conjurer” (here you’ll see what the owls and toads — which he painted in nearly every work — mean)
   • This Painting Went Beyond Medieval Traditions  

If you found this video helpful, please like and subscribe. Leave a comment to tell us which detail of the triptych you’d like us to explore more deeply in the next video, or which artist you’d like to see covered in a future episode.
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