Hieronymus Bosch’s original painting of The Garden of Earthly Delights, created in the late 15th or early 16th century. The first panel shows the creation of humanity, the second is paradise on Earth, and then humanity’s fall and damnation.
Hieronymus Bosch’s original painting of The Garden of Earthly Delights, created in the late 15th or early 16th century. The first panel shows the creation of humanity, the second is paradise on Earth, and then humanity’s fall and damnation.
Meet the “tree man,” one of the most famous elements of the painting “The Garden of Earthly Delights,” showing humans drifting toward hell due to their sinful lives on Earth. Creator Parastone explains, “Many recognize a self-portrait in one of Bosch’s most famous hybrid creatures. The hollow space in the egg-shaped body offers space for a pub. All breaks adrift through the two boats in which the tree-shaped paws are situated. Music and dance may have led to licentiousness, symbolized by the bagpipes on the headgear.”
Parastone
Meet the “tree man,” one of the most famous elements of the painting “The Garden of Earthly Delights,” showing humans drifting toward hell due to their sinful lives on Earth. Creator Parastone explains, “Many recognize a self-portrait in one of Bosch’s most famous hybrid creatures. The hollow space in the egg-shaped body offers space for a pub. All breaks adrift through the two boats in which the tree-shaped paws are situated. Music and dance may have led to licentiousness, symbolized by the bagpipes on the headgear.”
Parastone
In The Garden of Earthly Delights, we see a number of birds, rendered so perfectly that scholars have figured out their exact species. Birds are also synonymous with love and lust, and the word for bird in Dutch is sometimes a pun on the word for sex. Make of that what you will, in this crazy image.
In The Garden of Earthly Delights, we see a number of birds, rendered so perfectly that scholars have figured out their exact species. Birds are also synonymous with love and lust, and the word for bird in Dutch is sometimes a pun on the word for sex. Make of that what you will, in this crazy image.Parastone
Meet the “tree man,” one of the most famous elements of the painting “The Garden of Earthly Delights,” showing humans drifting toward hell due to their sinful lives on Earth. Creator Parastone explains, “Many recognize a self-portrait in one of Bosch’s most famous hybrid creatures. The hollow space in the egg-shaped body offers space for a pub. All breaks adrift through the two boats in which the tree-shaped paws are situated. Music and dance may have led to licentiousness, symbolized by the bagpipes on the headgear.”
Parastone
In The Garden of Earthly Delights, we see a number of birds, rendered so perfectly that scholars have figured out their exact species. Birds are also synonymous with love and lust, and the word for bird in Dutch is sometimes a pun on the word for sex. Make of that what you will, in this crazy image.Parastone
This is Paradise Fountain, from the panel in The Garden of Earthly Delights showing humans during Creation.
Yep, that’s a devil with a burning cauldron on its head, sitting on a fancy medieval toilet. Known as “devil in a night chair,” this is a creature from The Garden of Earthly Delights. And yes, the devil is eating souls and pooping them out.
From Bosch’s painting The Last Judgement. Parastone explains the context: “On the foreground of the shocking central panel stands a creature characteristic of Bosch’s work, consisting of only one head on two feet. His anatomical imperfections are covered by a headscarf. The painter has embroidered upon a classical Greek form in his own distinctive way. In ancient times, omitting body parts was also considered frightening. The character, amusing to us, seems to be taking a carefree stroll through the bloody scene of the Last Judgement.”
This “blue flutist” is from The Last Judgement. Parastone explains: “He is a cheerful blue creature which adds luster with his music to the horrifying spectacle. He symbolizes lawlessness, ending in many not being admitted to heaven on Judgement Day.”
From The Last Judgement, this “freak with beard” is “merely a head and legs. Bosch has …[added] the tail of a reptile. He looks with a frightened expression at the mincer, where sinners are put on Judgement Day.”
Bosch’s painting The Temptation of St. Anthony.
This is from the right panel of the triptych, The Temptation of Saint Anthony. This detail is a symbol for greed. Parastone explains: “The dagger in the creature’s fat belly shows the consequences of intemperance. His eyes look out at you in acknowledgment.”
Parastone
Bosch’s painting John on Patmos.
From the painting John on Patmos, this “choir’s devil” had a special role according to Parastone: “This spy kept an eye on the clergymen who were members of the choir. If the gentlemen didn’t keep their minds on the lesson or if they let their thoughts wander off into undesired directions, then, on Judgment Day, they were confronted with the accurate notes of this spectacled bookkeeper.”
If you love action figures and medieval insanity (and who doesn’t?), you need to make room in your display cabinets for these incredible recreations of figures from the paintings of 15th century artist Hieronymus Bosch. A famous late Medieval painter, Bosch’s work focused entirely on Christian themes, often depicting heaven and hell in imaginatively lurid detail.
These delightfully demonic figurines are the creation of Parastone, a company in the Netherlands that specializes in 3-D recreations of classic paintings. They sell their wares in museum stores and Amazon. Bosch’s work is perfect for them, not only because he hails from the place where they work, but also because his paintings are full of tiny details. Every person and beast in a Bosch canvas is so well-rendered that their diminutive contortions hold up to intense scrutiny. Most of these characters are taken from Bosch’s triptych The Garden of Earthly Delights, but there are a few from elsewhere. (There’s a great interactive tour of The Garden of Earthly Delights here, complete with helpful commentary on many of the images.)
This is a modern video interpretation of Bosch’s original painting, created in 2016 for the MOTI Museum in Holland.
We don’t know much about Bosch’s life, other than that he was apparently quite popular in his lifetime—he received many foreign commissions—and he came from a family of painters. We don’t know whether he thought of his works as satirical or deadly serious. He was a member of a conservative Christian organization in his hometown, but that may have been more of a social rather than spiritual pursuit. All we have left of the enigmatic artist are his detailed renderings of humanity gone mad with pleasure and punishment, bodies morphed beyond all recognition.
Annalee Newitz is a former Senior Tech Culture Editor at Ars Technica. She is the author of Scatter, Adapt, and Remember: How Humans Will Survive a Mass Extinction, and her first novel, Autonomous, came out in September 2017.
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