Week13: Nobu Fujioka, The Garden of Earthly Delights

According to Janson's History of Art, this triptych represents humans in the natural world. Especially in the central piece, Hieronymous Bosch depicts many animals as well as naked human beings. Some of them seem to be out of scale, for example, many species of birds in the lake with some men sitting on them at the left middle edge. The birds are almost twice as large humans who are holding on to them as if they are afraid of something. The birds also face one direction, perhaps looking at the procession of animals above. In contrast to their more affectionate attitude towards the birds, humans riding on horses, goats, and other quadruped animals appear to be controlling and dominating them. Humans are on a similar scale as the animals controlling the direction of the procession. Since quadruped animals live on ground, whereas birds normally live above ground, humans have power over quadruped animals because they are more reachable. Maybe Bosch is conveying that we have unequal attitudes towards animals depending on their accessibility,whether exploitative or loving.