Garden of Earthly Delights Book

Rear cover notes: "This exotic triptych is perhaps the most beautiful and the most complex of the creations of Bosch, the greatest master of fantasy who ever lived. Its weird, exuberant ideas and dream-like quality, with the juxtaposition of objects of daily life alongside fantastic creatures, reveals an inventive symbolism even in what appear to be purely exotic scenes. The subject is the Last Judgement and a condemnation of carnal lust. In three panels we are taken from the Creation and the supposed innocence of early man in the Garden of Eden, through the corruption in the time of Noah depicted on the centre panel - a composition of poetic fantasy, full of primitive birds, men and animals bearing obvious sexual overtones - to the cold, murky plains and torments of Hell and its hideous fires on the right hand panel. Curious and intriguing, the whole panel measures 2.2 x 3.89 metres in size and is reproduced here for the first time complete and in life-size detail. Very few people will have had the chance to study the whole painting as it is too large to reproduce easily, but here the complicated imagery, the teeming satirical details and underlying religious comment of this fantastic vision are printed in 56 double-page illustrations which together recreate the whole extraordinary masterpiece in brilliant colour. John Rowlands, Deputy Keeper, the Department of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum, introduces the painting and places it in the context of Bosch's life and work."Read More