to be much the same.[1] Fränger saw many differences, however, that would belie the dual association. The Eden panel of the Hay Wagon contains sequences of the Fall of the Rebel Angels, the Creation of Eve, the Temptation, and the Expulsion from the Garden which are placed on a vertical axis in the same garden landscape. The grouping is traditional, but there is some Boschian originality in their presentation, as the “rebel angels” are presented as insects falling in swarms from heaven and there is a peculiar rock formation at the site of the Creation of Eve, presaging the even stranger ones to be seen in The Garden of Earthly Delights. Nevertheless, little to be found in this panel is incomprehensible. The central painting, now supposed to be an illustration of the Flemish proverb: “the world is a haystack; everyone takes what he can grab thereof”, is dominated by a gigantic hay wagon which, according to Jacques Combe:
Evok[es] at the same time the late Gothic motive of the procession of pageant, and the Renaissance Triumph… drawn by semi-human, semi-animal monsters and headed straight for hell, followed by a cavalcade of ecclesiastical and lay dignitaries. From all sides of the wagon men scramble over one another to pull hay from the giant stack. The only heed they take of their fellows is to thrust them out of their way or to raise hands against them. One sticks a knife into the throat of the unfortunate competitor whom he has pinned to the ground.
Many among the greedy mob wear ecclesiastical garb, indicating Bosch’s attitude that the holy as well as profane are involved in this scavenging. A fat monk sits in a large chair and lazily sips a drink while several nuns do service for him, packing bundles of hay into the bag at his feet. One of his nuns turns to the lure of sexual enticement symbolised by the fool playing a bagpipe, to whom she offers a handful of hay in hopes of winning his favours.
Christ Mocked (The Crowning with Thorns), c. 1490–1500.
Oil on oak, 73.5 × 59.1 cm.
The National Gallery, London.
Christ Carrying the Cross, c. 1480–1490.
Oil on wood, 57 × 32 cm.
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.
The clergy seem to be in the majority among the wicked brought under Bosch’s scathing attack in this altarpiece, but there are others, too, of the devil’s earthly disciples. There is a quack toothpuller whose hay-filled pocket refers to the fees that have “lined his pockets”, garnered as they are from the gullible populace. There are gypsies, women and children, figures always suspect as servitors of Satan and a blind beggar led by a child to his share of the spoils. Two idling lovers embrace on top of the hay pile while two others enjoy the delights of music, played for their pleasure by a troubadour-demon who fingers his own pipe-shaped snout. All are caught in a snare laid by Satan and ignore the angel who implores them to look to heaven for their souls’ sake. Above them, an image of Christ in the clouds shows to a heedless mankind the signs of His martyrdom on earth – His stigmata. The scene is obviously an allegory of man’s sins on earth which foretell his inevitable progress into hell. The monsters that draw him there administer tortures designed for each of his sins.
The hell scene of this triptych is as unusual in presentation as the Eden scene is traditional, demonstrating all of the master’s skills of painting and designing unusual torments. A flaming sky lights up the windows of a furnace in which can be seen figures engaged in demonic activity. Arms and legs protrude from a lake coloured by the glow and heat of the sky. In the foreground are the sinners just received into hell. Stripped bare, they are submitting passively to their individual punishments. Unusual in this scene is the construction work underway in the middle of the setting as if it were necessary to construct more torture chambers for the expected influx of sinners already crowding in from the fracas at the hay-wagon. This altarpiece contains some symbolism of an obscure nature, but there is not the overwhelming amount to be found in the Earthly Delights and the large Saint Anthony. Even Fränger is in agreement with the other writers that this triptych depicts the stigma of the original sin under which man is born and by which his course is set through life to its dénouement in hell. The cryptic symbolism does not obscure the main theme, fairly direct in presentation, so there is naturally more unanimity of opinion concerning the message of this altarpiece.
Such is not the case with The Garden of Earthly Delights. The Eden panel of this painting is not a setting for several traditional events concerning Adam and Eve. They are seen only once, Adam sitting and Eve kneeling on either side of the Lord. The group is placed on a lawn between two pools, from which crawl hybrid animals engaged in bizarre activities. A fountain in the centre or the middle pool and a rock structure in the upper background appear to have become organic and grown to their odd conformations. There is an entire apple grove behind the Creator and Created, but no tree seems to be as distinguished as the Tree of Life – this must be the palm-like tree to the side of Adam. Its leaves are shaped like coins, their weight causing the tendrils to sway in awkward heaviness. The forbidden fruit must be the enlarged berries which droop from the vine curling about the trunk.
The central scene seems to be set in the same kind of landscape, but its plants have rigidified like minerals and its mineral structures grown like plants.
This land is overwhelmed with human and animal beings, fairly normal in their appearances although abnormal in their relative sizes. The humans are well-proportioned nudes that diminish in size according to the laws of perspective, but the animals, although appearing normal when seen separately, are not always relative to the humans in size – sometimes entirely dwarfing them. Nor are their colours or activities proper to their biological requirements. The activities of the humans, as they eat upon oversized fruits, or engage in erotic play, have caused writers from the time of Father José de Següenza to believe this to be a testament to the deadly sin of lust, or “luxuria”. In the words of art-historian Lotte Brand Phillip:
Yet, in the belief of the Middle Ages, all sins and vices are interwoven and one derives from the other. Therefore, it is not only ‘luxuria’ which is depicted here but all the sins brought forth by this vice and all the vices which cause ‘luxuria’. This is quite evident in the right wing which, in a horrifying inferno, presents the punishment of all kinds of sins.
The hell scene of this altarpiece is Bosch’s diabolic masterpiece. Throughout its far reaches, sinners are being tortured in a night-lit landscape that is so marvellously painted as to be a work of genius. This scene is dominated by a wondrous egg-tree monster that floats upon the inky water on two boat feet from which tree-trunk legs are sprouting. The body of this creature is a cracked-open egg-shell that serves as a tavern interior that its occupants must have reached by a ladder from the water below. Attached to the top of the egg is a hat on which a procession of nudes paired with demons parades around a large pink bagpipe, symbolic of lust. Around and below the egg-man are areas of hell where sinners of various professions (knights, monks, musicians, gamblers, etc.) undergo excruciatingly appropriate tortures in a visualisation unequalled in art history for its inventiveness.
Comparing these two triptychs, Fränger saw at least five arguments which would oppose the association of the two in the Hay Wagon’s obvious theme: creation – sinful-life – hell. “First of all, there is the basic difference in breaks and coherences”, said the historian. In the Hay Wagon, a break in continuity occurs between the Garden of Eden panel and the middle panel, and there is decided coherence between the centre scene and Hell. This can be seen in the fact that the hybrid creatures pulling the wagon into hell from the middle panel are obviously minions of Satan; their parade continues with no break into hell. In the Earthly Delights, no such separation exists between the Garden of Eden panel and the central one, but a continuity of landscape from one into the other. This difference in continuities in the two works
Fränger stated: “No other work of Bosch’s has been so consistently misunderstood as a result of this prejudiced approach as has the triptych, “The Millennium” [this is the title given the work by Fränger, who believed that the central panel represented the idealised estate of the millennial existence].
