Hieronymus Bosch and 'The Garden of Earthly Delights'

Shown below is the left panel of the triptych known as The Garden of Earthly Delights, by Hieronymus Bosch. This panel is The Garden of Eden, or Joining of Adam and Eve, by a not-yet-born Christ. But, you just know the forbidden fruit is next: look at all those people in the central panel having sex! Indeed, the Dutch title is more revealing: De tuin der lusten, literally "The garden of lusts."

Bosch painted this later in life, between 1490 and 1510, by which time he must have learned a thing or two. But, this is why there had to be a third panel ("Hell") to set the record straight. Art historians tie themselves up in knots arguing that the triptych is a "moral warning" to us humans to not engage in lust. Perhaps it was, for some. I see the work as simultaneously ironic, as part of the ferment in European thinking right before Luther and the Reformation upended everything.

Below is a circa 1550 drawing of Bosch, by Jacques Le Boucq, possibly copy of a self-portrait.