Sorry listeners, we’ve left a long gap since our last two episodes… but we’re making up for it with a truly bonkers painting. Oh, you’re in for a treat this time, because we are talking about Hieronymus Bosch’s wackiest of paintings, The Garden of Earthly Delights. It was Augustina’s turn to research this one and she ended up tearing her hair out trying to figure out what was going on. Turns out, most art historians feel the same way. The only thing we definitely know about Bosch is that his art is cray cray.

This episode we’re also treating you to not one, but two Bosch-themed musical interludes. Thank you to composer Jim Spalink for allowing us to play his arrangement of The Butt Music From Hell and to brilliant comedian Harriet Braine (@harrietbraine) for her song based on the painting.

We’ll share the painting in all the usual places but for a really in-depth look, try this interactive tour that lets you zoom right in:

https://archief.ntr.nl/tuinderlusten/en.html

It’s a really dense and interesting piece of work so if you want some further reading / watching, we recommend:

Great Art Explained: The Garden of Earthly Delights https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBG621XEegk

Renaissance Revolution - The Garden of Earthly Delights (BBC) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yx5M2um7zjM

15 Facts You Need to Know About the Delightfully Weird ‘Garden of Earthly Delights’ https://mymodernmet.com/garden-of-earthly-delights-bosch/

… And some freaky looking owls https://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2012/10/bad-news-birds.html