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"The Garden of Earthly Delights" is Heironymous Bosch's most famous and one of the art world's most enigmatic paintings. Although composed in the triptych format of a church altar piece, its subject matter is hardly that of traditional pieces of this type. There are no definitive interpretations of this painting. Given the content of the left and right panels, many are tempted to simply call it a warning about the inevitable punishment of sin. Yes, look at all those naked people; how can it end any way but badly for them? Even if it does look like fun. Especially if it looks like fun.		However other scholars have noted that this interpretation ignores the details of the middle panel. It depicts humans of mixed races playing together and living in harmony with animals in a bountiful land. If you look with an open mind, you will not find any depictions of real sin. In other words, perhaps the patron who commissioned this painting wanted Bosch to imagine what life would have been like if Adam and Eve (mythological stand-ins for us) hadn't blown it all and given us a world more often like the right panel.The center looks like a "liberal" paradise, doesn't it? Think about it.

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