APPAULING

             With crab fountains, hind leg walking lizards, flying fish, bubble people, zombies, mussel people, nun pigs, ice skating creatures, bird people, and more, Bosch’s Garden of Earthly delights has one thinking if he was on drugs back while painting this in the beginning of the 14th century. In a time where artists were painting biblical scenes, Jesus and mother Marry, Bosch decides to take the notions of heaven, earth and hell to the chopping block and butchers it with a knife of obscurity and absurdness.
            The triptych is painted in oil on a wooden square that has 2 rectangular panels that unhinge to reveal the artwork. The unopened front is a bleak depiction of earth before animals were created. God is on the top left and above him is an inscribed quote from Psalm 33 reading "Ipse dixit, et facta sunt: ipse mandávit, et creáta sunt"—For he spake and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast. Inside, each panel has a simply depiction of heaven, earth or hell, when viewed left to right. Makes sense. But upon further inspection the painting falls into a pit of ridiculousness, the further you go the more abject things get. The painting leaves the spectator wondering why heaven contains black pools, why the girl on earth has flowers up her heinie and why is there a tree house man. Sure Bosch exhibits great painting capability and fits an abound amount of objects in this work, however it seems like a cluster of eye candy approaching the title of Kitsch as opposed to avant-garde.
            No black people in hell, huge ears that are holstering a knife, people pouring into an egg, 3 headed peacock-birds, the list of nonsensical rubbish continues on and on; these appalling images could fill pages. Inspecting this painting will be the only way to envision this chaos, which I do recommend to look into if one would like to chuckle at what a perverted PeeWee Herman would paint if he had artistic abilities. It is just hard to believe that art historians think this was painted for a wedding.