Garden of Earthly Delights copy wows at the Hieronymus Bosch exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts

If one of the best attractions of 2021 was the opening of the Pál Szinyei Merse exhibition at the Hungarian National Gallery, this year the same can be said of the Bosch exhibition, opened at the Museum of Fine Arts on 9 April, one of the most significant displays of his works of the last half-century.


Between Heaven and Hell – the Enigmatic World of Hieronymus Bosch presents the visitor with nearly 90 works of art. Only ten are by the Dutch master himself, almost half his total oeuvre, in fact, but they still leave you mesmerised as you step out of the museum doors. You almost can’t put into words what you saw, seeping into your mind so deeply the next day, that’s all you’ll want to talk about.

Bosch exhibitions are usually organised by museums that have at least one Bosch painting, so obtaining masterpieces from public and private collections is no little work. It took the best part of ten years to collate this show by Bosch and his contemporaries. This is actually good news, as an exhibition has been created that covers every little detail, presenting not only the artist’s life and work, but also the society of the day, its worldview, literary works and other creations that influenced the 15th and 16th centuries – and lived on in the picturesque world shaped by Bosch.

This seven-section exhibition opens with darkness right from the start, not necessarily in its subject matter, but the dark-blue wall and dim lighting bring out the insights of the unearthly, mystical, devilish and angelic medieval world and the new age that infiltrates it, created by Bosch.


The dark background and twilight provide such a defining experience that even when you move into the light, you still shiver. You might see paintings depicting the life of the saints and the earthly incarnation of Jesus, their basis is still otherworldly visions and terror. Particularly in the paintings presented in the last section of the exhibition created by Bosch’s followers, you see an inexhaustible repository and symbols of suffering and horror brought to life.

We have hinted at horror several times, but whether it’s compositions by Bosch or his followers – Jan Mandijn, Jan Wellens de Cock or Pieter Bruegel the Elder – if you see only one of them, it may not have quite the same effect. The situation changes when the flow of damned souls drifting into a river of hell, throats slit with knives, strange insects, bird people and monsters rains down incessantly.

The Last Judgment triptych, The River to Hell and The Ascension of Christ the Saviour, The Temptation of St Anthony, Jan Brueghel's Aeneas and Sibyl in the Underworld, and Jacob Isaacszoon van Swanenberg’s painting also based on the myth of Aeneas and Sibyl, are so immersed in your consciousness that they cannot fail to elicit stirring dreams.

Undoubtedly, Bosch's best-known work is The Garden of Earthly Delights triptych, whose middle panel many art historians have been trying to decipher over the past centuries. There is no complete agreement on its meaning or symbolism.


Although you might first stand in front of it for a few minutes, it is worth spending at least half an hour on the painting because it is so rich in detail that you always discover something new to think about, something that might amaze or offend, or even make you laugh at the complete incomprehension of it. Colourful flowers emerge from different human orefices, futuristic machines abound, a bird-like figure sits on a throne eating a man... the list can go on almost indefinitely.

The painting hung in the Brussels town palace of Henrik III of Nassau and functioned as a kind of conversation piece. Aristocratic nobles often talked about the hidden meanings of the image, but the curator of the current exhibition, Bernadett Tóth, also said the work, created around 1500, may have served as a princely mirror for the young Henrik III. The orgiastic scenes flowing into hellish suffering helped keep sensual desires in check and encourage virtue.

This is not the original shown here, because due to its condition it could not even be taken from the Prado in Madrid to the exhibition held in Bosch’s home town of ’s-Hertogenbosch. The Museum of Fine Arts is exhibiting the earliest and highest-quality replica of The Garden of Earthly Delights and, in order to see the triptych at the same time, the curators have added a 16th-century tapestry interwoven with gold and silver threads.


This is also worth browsing if you want to make any new discoveries in the big picture, however bizarre the contrast. At least you can point out the weird figure upon whose bottom was painted sheet music, actually turned into a melody by a student in Oklahoma a few years ago.

While Earthly Delights is the most mysterious and best-known of the paintings, those depicting otherworldly visions might have an even greater impact. From this series of images, you can see two works, The Ascension of Christ the Saviour and The River to Hell, which you’ll almost certainly return to on your visit.


The more you stand before these two paintings, the more you fall under their influence, and while the eyes of Tolkien’s Sauron and an exploding star came to mind in the mountain rising in The River To Hell, you cannot avert your gaze from the bright tunnel in The Ascension of Christ the Saviour.

At the very end of the exhibition, you can see how much Bosch has had an impact on his contemporaries and future generations, making it clear that the hype around him is mainly thanks to his followers. The elaborate detail down to the smallest hair is also shown by the codices and objects of applied arts exhibited alongside his paintings and graphics.

The exhibition opened within the framework of the Bartók Spring International Arts Weeks.