The Garden of Earthly Delights

For years I've been obsessed with this painting. As a teen, it frightened, yet drew me to itself. In my twenties, I lived it. During my church years, I was revolted by it. Now, as I reach the end of my life I am simply fascinated by it.

Hieronymus Bosch was an artist from the Netherlands, who created this masterpiece on wooden boards with oil paints. Accredited with a confirmed total of twenty-five great works, all of which seemed to be centered around Bosch's fantastical, illusionary characters and the strictest translation of Biblical principles. Dour and horrifying, Bosch seems to be shouting out warnings to those who study his work.

The above masterpiece, The Garden of Earthly Delights, would not be complete without the cover art that appears when the end pieces are folded over. Creation as God intended before the fallen angels destroyed the plans He had for the world and all its' inhabitants.

The outer panels depict God creating the world with nothing but His spoken word. You can find God in the upper left-hand corner of the painting. (It's just that simple. You have now found God!) A gentle, peaceful planet created to nurture and create happiness for the souls He would soon plant upon it with a tender hand. He provided flesh for the first soul and borrowed that flesh to create the second. Flesh was a covering for the souls, nothing more, nothing less. A miraculous vehicle designed to drive us from conception to death.

At the tender age of twelve, I was introduced to this hypnotic work of art in my private flute teacher's massive collection of National Geographic, as I was waiting for my weekly lesson. I always arrived a bit early for my lesson so I could peruse those naughty books with pictures of scantily clad warriors from civilizations that required less clothing than we did. Fascinating... the stories. Anyway, when I opened up the edition of Renaissance Painters from the Low Country and found this stunning triptych, I could not look away. When the student before me walked out I realized that I still held the evidence of my debauchery and I flapped it down on the end table quickly.

During future waiting times at my flute teacher's house, I searched and searched in vain for that mesmerizing painting by the man with a very odd name, Hieronymus Bosch. The images danced in my mind for years, until I ran across the painting again in my twenties at a bookstore featuring books about Renaissance artists. I purchased two of the books and created three-dimensional versions of the paintings within, including the one that had haunted me for so many years.

Carefully cutting the characters from one of the pages to glue onto the original print created a visual treat, which I held onto and kept inside the pocket of my suitcase for quite a while. In later years this craft was re-invented by scrapbookers. However, I believe I was the first to discover it. Not to fault scrapbookers.

At the time it melded perfectly with the sordid life I found myself in. Long past the peaceful creation vignette, I was, indeed, part of the center plate of the painting, cavorting with the seven deadly sins and inviting the death of my soul. Perhaps it was a punishment to look at my own sinner's errors every time I looked at the doctored painting. A punishment and a reminder that someday I would have to answer for my choices.

Then came salvation and my decades in strict churches which made me recoil from such fleshly fantasies. I was horrified when my son brought me a book he had found in a second-hand bookshop. "Look, Mom! What are all these naked people doing?"

Good Lord!

"Sam put that book back. You shouldn't be looking at that!" I shouted, recoiling from the guilt of my younger obsession with Hieronymus Bosch and his depiction of sinners frolicking in the garden of sin. As a Christian woman, and Sunday school teacher regularly doling out grim warnings about the dangers of finding those earthly delights to my young wards.

Now that I'm facing the end panel of Hieronymus's whimsically twisted painting I must confess that it still grips me in the same way as when I was surreptitiously peeking at it in my flute teacher's drawing room. I find that it is impossible to simply look away from it. Understanding now that life is meant to be lived to the fullest. Love, laughter, and lust are all a part of the garden in which we have been planted by the gentle hand of God. Enjoy your life and don't fear the reaper, because even those in Hell, although warm, seem to be having a pretty good time, according to Bosch.