Silk headscarf "The Garden of Earthly Delights"

This is probably one of the most mysterious masters, and his works are surrounded by a large number of stories invented to somehow decipher the message of the genius artist.

We are talking about Jheronimus Bosch and one of his most famous works “The Garden of Earthly Delights” (~1500) where Bosch wanted to depict the entire human experience – from the earthly life to the afterlife. The artists of that time painted the human appearance, while Bosch had the courage to depict the internal world – the good and the evil.

The first thing to know is that Bosch himself did not even name his works, neither this one nor any other. The emphasis on this is needed to understand that almost all information – so-called facts - is of a rather blurred character and is based only on the views of those who compiled these facts. Names were given by researches and art historians later to make it easier to navigate and identify the paintings.

It consists of four parts – the cover, the left part, the central part (actually the kerchief) and the right part. The central part (depicted on our kerchief) is the place where souls get between reincarnations, and demons lure them with earthly temptations, so that former angels could forget about the spiritual world and develop a desire to reincarnate in the material world. Demonic beings involve humanity in all kinds of harmful lusts, distancing them from God. They bring closer to eternal life in hell without a chance for salvation. Refusing from the sublime and spiritual, people indulge in temptations and sinful pleasures.