The triptych is reproduced here for the first time complete & in life-size detail.

Hieronymus Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights takes a special place in European art history, partly because of the special late-medieval imagery. The meaning of the painting, however, differs according to every expert. After extensive research, Reindert

Now available in a new edition, this book explores Hieronymus Bosch’s masterpiece Garden of Earthly Delights. Few paintings inspire the kind of intense study and speculation as Garden of Earthly Delights, the world-famous triptych by Netherlandish master Hieronymus Bosch. The painting has been interpreted as a heretical masterpiece, an opulent illustration of the Creation, and a premonition of the end of the world. In this book, renowned art historian Hans Belting offers a radical reinterpretation of the work, which he sees not as apocalyptic but utopian, portraying how the world would exist had the Fall not happened. Taking readers through each panel, Belting discusses various schools of thought and explores Bosch’s life and times. This fascinating study is an important contribution to the literature and theory surrounding one of the world’s most enigmatic artists.

A new and exciting interpretation of Bosch's masterpiece, repositioning the triptych as a history of humanity and the natural world Hieronymus Bosch's (c. 1450-1516) Garden of Earthly Delights has elicited a sense of wonder for centuries. Over ten feet long and seven feet tall, it demands that we step back to take it in, while its surface, intricately covered with fantastical creatures in dazzling detail, draws us closer. In this highly original reassessment, Margaret D. Carroll reads the Garden as a speculation about the origin of the cosmos, the life-history of earth, and the transformation of humankind from the first age of world history to the last. Upending traditional interpretations of the painting as a moralizing depiction of God's wrath, human sinfulness, and demonic agency, Carroll argues that it represents Bosch's exploration of progressive changes in the human condition and the natural world. Extensively researched and beautifully illustrated, this groundbreaking secular analysis draws on new findings about Bosch's idiosyncratic painting technique, his curiosity about natural history, his connections to the Burgundian court, and his experience of contemporary politics. The book offers fresh insights into the artist and his most beloved and elusive painting.

The structure of this publication is different from previous years. This time we are not presenting diverse scientific articles by researchers, but one single topic linking up with the previous publications by Dr Paul Vandenbroeck entitled 'A suspect paradise. Studies on the left panel and detail symbolism of Hieronymus Bosch?s so-called 'Garden of Earthly Delights''.00This contribution is divided into two parts: ?The Garden of Eden, the ?Work of Nature? and marriage? and ?Meaningful motifs on the centre panel?. The first part focusses on the paradise wedding, with the exotic and sinister and the animals and monstra in the Garden of Eden, the symbolism of the paradise fountain and the representation of the owl is unravelled. In the second part attention is paid to the crescent of the moon, the sphere, plants, animals, acrobats and flying people and the layered structure in the representation. Vandenbroeck poses the question whether here on the centre panel a paradise or a sinful situation is depicted. He provides arguments for the at least partially negative significance value of the symbolism, which renders it impossible to depict a fully positive reality such as Paradise. His study results find their way into this highly enthralling read.