Garden of Earthly Delights

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Garden of Earthly Delights
Prado Museum read more Oil on panel Center
panel 86 x 76Mature period ca. 1505-10.
Patron perhaps Hendrik III of Nassau
(1483-1538) Owned work by 1517, copied from heirs
in 1566 Hendrik was considered unrefined and
given to crude practical jokes
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Outline
Possible interpretations Is the
altarpiece negative or positive? Key areas that
must be interpreted Lower left corner of
center Marriage scene in Eden Knowing
look of Tree Man Exterior Formula Garden
of Eden Hell What is depicted in the
center?
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Possible interpretations
NEGATIVE A fiery sermon on perdition Vanity and
transience of worldly life The lesson of the
flood as it was in the days of Noah
POSITIVE Garden of earthly delights, garden of
love Adamite sect of the Brethren of the Free
Spirit (Wilhelm Fraenger) Allegory of alchemy
(Dixon)
Note references to astrology, popular proverbs
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Ps. 33.9, "For he spake and it was done he
commanded and it stood forth."
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Left wing
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Genesis 1 27 And God created man in his own
image, in the image of God created he him male
and female created he them.28 And God blessed
them and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and
multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue
it
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Sexuality is pure joy and bliss Perhaps
commissioned for marriage of Grand Master of the
Adamites
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The Strawberry Picture
An allegory of vanity of worldly pleasures
This picture tells of the vanity and glory and
transient taste of strawverries or the fruit of
the strawberry plant and its fragrance, which one
can hardly smell when it passes. Siguenza (1605)
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Brethren of the Free Spirit
Brothers and sisters were incarnations of Holy
Spirit, created in image of God, men and women
equal Adamites (documented in Brussels, Homines
intelligentiae tried for heresy in 1411
Augustine called after Adam and emulate his
paradisiac nakedness as it existed before the
Fall.
Brethren used a language of their own in which
they refer to the act of sexual union as the joy
of Paradise or by the term the upward road
acclivitas. Thus they use favorable terms in
speaking of a lascivious act to people who do not
understand their use of the terms.
Wilhelm Fraenger, The Millennium of Bosch
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Adam and Eve after the fall
Eve eats apple, cause of sin. Genesis
321   Unto Adam also and to his wife did the
LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them.
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Right wing
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Sin of Luxuria
Next image Bruegel, Luxuria (Lust), 1557,
Drawing in pen and gray-brown ink, 8 7/8 x 11
5/8 in., Brussels, Royal bibl.
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As it was in the days of Noahsicut erat in
diebus Noe
Matthew 24 (The Little Last Judgment) 36 "But
of that day and hour no one knows, not even the
angels of heaven, but My Father only. 37 But as
the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of
the Son of Man be. 38 For as in the days before
the flood, they were eating and drinking,
marrying and giving in marriage, until the day
that Noah entered the ark, 39 and did not know
until the flood came and took them all away, so
also will the coming of the Son of Man be.
Gombrich, 1969.
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Outline of Alchemy
"The World Sexualized" (Eliade)
Search for the "philosopher's stone" lapis
philosophorum by combining opposites, refining
the impure to find the pure. Intense
experimentation with combining and
distilling Allegory of spiritual refinement,
often Christianized. Materia prima -
quicksilver, female, spiritus (soul) - sulphur,
dry, male, anima (intellect) Process 1. Substanc
e in enclosed vessel 2. Warmed distilled
black 3. Heated into vapor solid
white 4. More heating red Stone or Elixir
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Hans Weiditz (fl. early 16th century) An
Alchemist, c. 1520.
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Pieter Brueghel the Elder (1525-1569) An
Alchemist at work, mid 16th cent.
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Alchemical Egg, Bibl. Apost. Vat. Pal. Lat. 41
(Dixon 31)
Alchemical Egg Vessel. Nuremberg, Germ. Natl.
(Dixon 30)
Ovum Philosophicum Philosophical or Hermetic
Egg the principal vessel used in alchemical
operations. As a round, glass vessel with a
long, thin neck it is also called a retort, which
was often likened to a wild goose. (Rulandus
17th c. alchemical lexicon)
Alchemical Egg Vessel, from C. Gessner, Quatre
Livres des secrets, Paris 1573. (Dixon 34)
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Alchemical Retort on Round Platform, Leiden,
Bibl. RijksUni. Cod. Voss Chym F29. (Dixon 42)
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Coitus, from Jacopo della Porta, Ars
distillatoria, 1609 (Dixon 41)
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bain-marie
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Alchemical Marriage Chamber, from Testamentum
theophrasti Paracelsi, Strassburg 1532
(Dixon fig 9)
Philosophers Tree. London, B.L. Harley Ms 6453.
(Dixon fig. 10)
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Conjunctio
Marriage of opposites, male-Mercury
female-sulphur Adam Eve Rubedo (Red) phase
Alchemical Conjunction, from Pretiosissimum
Donum, Paris, Bib. Ars M 975 (Dixon fig
13) Alchemical Conjunction. Bibl. Apost. Vat.
Pal. Lat 412. (Dixon 2)
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Alchemical Conjunction, Pal. Lat. 412 (Dixon 3)
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Coagulation
"child's play" Elements cooked in a bain-marie.
Distillation, a turning upside down.
Distillation as Turning Upside Down. London,
Wellcome Inst. for History of Medecine, Ms 29.
(Dixon 14)
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Images of childs play from alchemical
manuscripts
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Putrificatio
Rotting blackening in a hot fire Hell,
governed by Saturn Nigredo (Black)
phase Mortificatio (death) in order to be reborn
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Alchemical Putrification, from Le Livre de la
Sainte Trinite (Dixon 6)
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Separatio
Pain mutilation
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Alchemical Putrification, from Le Livre de la
Sainte Trinite (Dixon 6)
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Exaltatio
Resurrection, cleansing purification "Flood of
Noah" Albedo (White) phase. liberation
fixation of pure elements
Alchemical Deluge from Coronation of Nature,
London, BL Sloane Ms 12. (Dixon 48)
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Ps. 33.9, "For he spake and it was done he
commanded and it stood forth."