I took a required art appreciation class in high school before moving on to a STEM degree and career. In a previous lifetime (also known as high school and college) I was somewhat of a decent amateur musician. So my knowledge and interest in visual art is pretty limited. But I was always fascinated by Hieronymus Bosch. This is a nice video explaining what we know about The Garden of Earthly Delights. It turns out we know surprisingly little about the motivation and intended message of the painting. Which I suppose is okay, since if a visual artist wanted to use a bunch of words to explain their intended message, they would be a writer instead. I always thought the most obvious interpretation is about original sin, where Adam’s interest in Eve leads to all kinds of debauchery for mankind later on which we all get punished for. But another interpretation apparently is that if there had been no original sin, then the debauchery itself could be sort of an alternative heaven. I don’t know, the first interpretation seems more likely to me. Considering this was medieval Spain we are talking about, I kind of think he was testing the boundaries of how mischievous he could be without getting burned at the stake.