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\nHieronymus Bosch, The Garden of Earthly Delights (Part Two): Great Art Explained\n

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\nIn this video I look at Hieronymus Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights. Nobody painted Hell quite like Bosch. What we think of as Hell, and certainly what Bosch thought of as Hell is not based on the bible. There is no mention of Hell...\nIn this video I look at Hieronymus Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights. Nobody painted Hell quite like Bosch. What we think of as Hell, and certainly what Bosch thought of as Hell is not based on the bible. There is no mention of Hell as a fiery place of eternal damnation in the original bible, and much of what we think of as hell comes from later mistranslations and medieval art.

The Garden of Earthly Delights was the most popular video(s) voted on by viewers. I am still taking suggestions, so please put them on the comments of my video \"what is your favourite work of art?\"

There are no records to tell us what Bosch or his contemporaries were thinking. There are so many theories out there, some more outlandish than others.

I have sifted through most of them, and from a process of elimination, come up with what I think is a pretty good idea. I have also come up with several ideas I haven’t seen before.

Bosch’s images are so ambiguous and their meaning so elusive, that they cannot be addressed by iconography alone. This is an attempt to look at as much evidence as possible, to come up with some form of meaning. Even so, there are still multiple interpretations.

I have based my research around the Bible, Medieval history, infrared scans, art history papers, books and historical documents. But in the end it is still my opinion. If you have an opinion, then why not put it in the comments, and keep the dialogue going?

What we think of as hell, and certainly what Bosch thought of as hell is not based on the bible. There is no mention of hell as a fiery place of eternal damnation in the original bible, and much of what we think of as hell comes from later mistranslations and medieval art. What hell is or like, or whether it exists in the bible at all is widely disputed even within modern Christianity.

The late middle-ages were a pivotal moment in European history. Explorers were discovering new exotic lands, Leonardo da Vinci was painting the Mona Lisa, Copernicus proposed that the sun was at the centre of our solar system and Erasmus was exploring radical new ideas.

The last bloody battles of the Hundred Years War had been fought and now Christian Europe was facing an onslaught by the Ottoman Empire.

It was the eve of the Reformation and Europe was experiencing the first stirrings of a spiritual crisis, and yet it was also the height of the Spanish inquisition.



In S’Hertogenbosch in the Netherlands a man called Hieronymus Bosch had no idea that a painting he was working on would still confound and confuse viewers five centuries after he painted it.

Everything in this paradise of pleasure has some kind of sexual connotation. Hollowed out fruit is referring to female genitalia – two cherries together, male genitalia. In the middle ages, to pluck fruit in Dutch was a euphemism for sex and the Dutch word, Vogelen meaning bird was a double entendre for sexual intercourse.

All of these pleasures are transient as none of earth’s pleasures will last.\n
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Media Length
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14:55
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Grade
9th - Higher Ed
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Subjects
Social Studies & History
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\nGreat Art Explained\n\n
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Date
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2021
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Language
English
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For Teacher Use
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Fine Print: Educational Use
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fruit, animals, glass, hundreds, drugs, painting, medieval art, art techniques
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art explained, art, history of art, art history, paintings explained, arte, onlineart, creative, artnews, fine art, genius, paintings, oil painting, portrait, history, artist, medieval, the arnolfini marriage, flemish painter, wealthy, class, flemish art, middle ages, national gallery london, hieronymus bosch, the garden of earthly delights, netherlands, hell, the devil, denbosch, bible, damnation, garden of eden, adam and eve, sex, carnal lust, direct link, sexual connotation, wild men, deadly sins, earthly delights, common, christ, figures, scene, bosch, symbol, inside, court, image, lust, left, tree, adam, part, panel, garden, eden, jesus, times
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Best For: Explaining a topic
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