Week 13 - Julie Zhu on The Garden of Earthly Delights

After my first glance of the triptych during discussion session on Monday, my impression of this piece was a painting of numerous weird and unearthly creatures put together on a huge canvas. Later, after careful observations, I realized it was actually a very interesting and meaningful depiction of the human beings with complex symbolism. In the first panel, it shows a biblical scene where Eve was presented to Adam by God. The setting looks very primitive and shows no human activities except the three characters in the foreground. This represents the beginning of mankind. The center panel presents a scene of busy human activities in a setting that resembles a massive garden (which is probably the reason for the name of the piece). In this scene, human beings are overruling the animals. Details of the people also show that they're happily engaged in their activities. Many of them are in couples while others are in groups. The right panel has a very different tone compared to the other two as the sky is dark. In this scene, animals are overpowering the humans. Faces of people display agony while they're being attacked and killed. 

The entire triptych shows a very interesting depiction of the progress of the human civilization, from the beginning to the end. In the entire painting, only God in the left panel and a man in the bottom right corner of the right panel was depicted with clothes on. This could mean that only God is respectable and civilized. (of course I don't know about the other guy in the right panel but I suppose he's some saint?) All other human figures are naked. Many of which in the center panel display some sort of sexual interest. The idea that I got from this piece of work is that human beings are none other than another type of all animals. While we are dominating the earth at this point of time, things might different one day when other stronger animals evolve.