De Bruyn 2023b
“Op verkenning in de Tuin der Lusten 9 – Het Aards Paradijs als wachtkamer?” (Eric De Bruyn) 2023
[in: Bossche Kringen, vol.. 10, nr. 2 (May 2023), pp. 59-62]
The landscapes in the left interior and central panels of Bosch’s Garden of Delights triptych have a number of visual echoes, although we see the landscape in the central panel from a broader bird’s-eye view than is the case in the left interior panel. These visual echoes suggest that the landscape in the central panel is a later phase of the landscape in the left interior panel, which has led some authors in the past to suppose that what we see in the central panel is Earthly Paradise in its state before the Fall of Man. However, this positive interpretation does not take into account a number of scenes in the central panel referring to sinfulness, and it also ignores the right interior panel (a Hell).
The medieval concept of the Earthly Paradise after the Fall of Man as the final phase of Purgatory and as a waiting room before Heaven might be more relevant here. This concept was denied by Church authorities, but it was still endorsed in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, both in the visual arts (Bouts, Bosch and his followers, others artists) and in literature (Dante’s Divine Comedy for example). Some motifs from medieval descriptions of this Earthly Paradise seem to return in Bosch’s central panel (among them giant fruits and constructions which adapt to the viewer’s fantasy). However, all visual and literary sources confirm that in Earthly Paradise functioning as a waiting room angels accompany the souls, and in the Garden’s central panel no angels can be seen. Furthermore, the presence of Adam and Eve (lower right corner) and of black men and women argues against an interpretation of the central panel as a representation of Earthly Paradise functioning as a porch of Heaven after the Fall of Man.
Why then does Bosch’s large garden of delight show similarities to the literary descriptions of Eden, and why do the left interior and central panels seem to form a close unit? The tenth (and last) episode of this mini-series about the Garden will try to answer that question.
[explicit May 29, 2023]
