Garden of Discoveries

Why does no one make art like they used to? Aside from the fact that the nature of art is that it changes over time with our beliefs and the way we express them. That's nice. I however am a fan of the quirky and highly detailed works of our friend...Hieronymous Bosch!

The center panel (Utopia) of his most ambitious work "Garden of Delights" has got to be my favorite. Every time it is examined, it expands the mind in new ways, causes new questions to be asked. For instance:

The red tepee, with oxygen-rich blood vessels emerging...not bad. Behind is a lovely bird feeding a random guy. But that's not the fun bit. Look at the tepee. It must be like the Tardis...a whole lot bigger on the inside than the outside. I'm counting 3 pairs of feet, and if the proportions are right in this, one guy might be able to duck a tad. Just two people and you are already straying into the dangerous lip-action zone.

But what is this? I declare...a man-eating mussel. My first thought involved the mussel forming men instead of pearls around a central kernel of junk, but there are pearls inside already. Maybe the man (lets call him Steve) climbed in to get some. And then Bob (the guy carrying him) is trying to help in some way. Or he's hungry for a little stir-fried mussel and just took advantage of the situation. Either way you look at it, something awfully strange is going on here.

(or the unthinkable...the rest of the panel is filled with folk copulating...perhaps we shouldn't be so specie-ist)

This one is just odd.

At first, the woman's? man's? arm looks almost like the man's leg behind them. The poor fruit is spewing out little black orbs like a flayed pinata on the bottom. And why aren't they joining the reverie of the entire rest of the Garden's population? I mean, she just looks tired. The man behind them has a thing for strawberries--he's clutching that thing as though the strawberry has just realized what's coming and is trying to make a dash for it. But our couple just looks tired. What *have* they been up to? Never mind. Given the context, I think I can guess.

'till next thought!