No one knows where it came from.
Hieronymus Bosch lived in the Dutch town of 's-Hertogenbosch at the turn of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. He belonged to a devout religious brotherhood; he went to confession and attended Mass. No scandals, no madness in his life — everything in perfect order.
And on the panels: creatures with the body of a fish and the head of a bird, people being devoured from inside and out, flying ships shaped like an ear, eggs split open with devils crawling from within. Where did it all come from?
Bosch was born around 1450. Hieronymus was an assumed name — his real name was Jeroen van Aken. His grandfather, father, and uncles were all painters. The name he took from his town: Bosch.
His triptychs were painted for churches and well-to-do patrons: The Garden of Earthly Delights, The Last Judgment, The Haywain. Each in three panels: on the left, paradise, or the beginning; in the center, the world in chaos; on the right, hell.
The Garden of Earthly Delights is the most famous. In its central panel, people and creatures fill a garden — bathing, eating fruit, busy with strange pursuits. Is it sin? Delight? A dream? No one is sure to this day.
The interpretations run into the hundreds. He was painting alchemical symbols. He was illustrating folk proverbs. He saw hallucinations. He was simply very learned and very strange.
He died in 1516, leaving some twenty-five paintings — and a riddle for the ages.