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The Garden of Earthly Delights
The musical instruments of torture in Bosch’s iconic painting of Hell are musically flawed, the Bate Collection has found.
Andy Lamb, Museum Manager at the Bate, has put on display replica copies of the instruments in Hieronymous Bosch’s famous triptych The Garden of Earthly Delights in an exhibition which opened in time for Halloween. But while trying to create exact copies of the medieval and Renaissance instruments, he found that Bosch’s designs do not work and sound ‘musically unpleasant.’ ‘I have tried to coax a few harmonious notes out of the wind instruments', says Andy, 'but the racket that comes out of it is horrible.’
‘We had been hoping to create a three-dimensional exhibition in which visitors to the Museum over Halloween could see exact replicas of the instruments in the painting and hear the instruments play haunting melodies, but we have had to accept defeat and change the designs of the instruments! The replicas of Bosch’s famous instruments make sounds, but none that are especially melodious or pleasant to the modern ear.’
The iconic depiction of hell in the third panel of the triptych is believed to have been completed in 1505. The painting shows man’s descent into hell after indulging in ‘earthly delights’, and musical instruments are used to torture the occupants of the underworld in the third panel.
But although the painting is abstract, Andy insists those instruments which are drawn correctly were intended to be exact replicas of real Renaissance and medieval instruments. ‘Although the painting itself has surreal elements – some of the instruments are being used to torture victims – it’s clear that for the most part the painting is a definite attempt to draw actual instruments of the period from their original designs.'
Recordings and images of Richard MacKenzie of the Faculty of Music and Andy Lamb playing the lute and the shawm respectively have recently been featured on The Times website.
The exhibition is now on display in the Bate Collection.