Last year I took AP Art History and I absolutely loved it. I learned about many different art pieces throughout history and many of those paintings were social commentaries and criticisms of their time. So when I read the assignment for this week’s blog, many different ideas of social criticism paintings popped into my head.
The only problem is that they’re from the olden days, and don’t relate to modern times. Right? Wrong.
The Garden of Earthly Delights by Bosch is from the 1400s-1500s. It’s a triptych with three panels- the first panel shows the creation of man, with God presenting a newly created (and very naked) Eve to Adam. The middle panel shows the downfall of man- he gives into his sexual desires and there are people having sex all over the place, with other people, animals and even gigantic fruit, which have seeds that symbolize fertility. The third panel is darker, and shows damnation, with people suffering in hell as punishment for their actions in the previous panels.
Now what could this possibly have to do with modern society?
Well, as we all know, modern society is obsessed with celebrities, body image, being thin, looking hot, getting drunk, partying, and basically living the good life. Our society promotes enjoying life and the “earthly pleasure” described in Bosch’s triptych. Our culture is pretty sex-obsessed. Most commercials, even ones that promote ordinary items such as deodorant or hair products, use sexuality in their commercials to promote their items because as we all know, sex sells.
Well, according to Bosch, if we continue to give in to these earthly pleasures and focus only on living the good life and giving into our physical desires, then we will surely rot in hell. Now, I’m not saying I think we are all going to hell. I’m just suggesting that there is more to life than physical pleasures. That is what sets humans apart from other animals. Most animals’ lives revolve around physical desires- food, sex and water. They hunt and mate, raise their babies and then repeat the cycle. But humans are above that. We are not slaves to our desires. We go to school, get a job, have friends, go out, wear clothes and live full, diverse lives. We speak, we think and philosophize about religion and spirituality- is there a God? Is there a higher being judging us? So if we give in to our primal desires, we essentially become animals because now we are no different than them. We need to focus on living meaningful lives and actually doing something worthwhile and not just living life to enjoy it before we die.
Again, I am not saying I believe we are all going to rot in hell. I’m just saying that Bosch’s third panel shows us being punished for our actions. I don’t know if this will happen- first of all no one knows if there really IS a God. Second, if there is, who knows if he will care or want to punish us? All I am saying is that Bosch criticizes sleeping around and giving into physical pleasures and living like animals instead of humans. I took this social criticism and applied it as a social critique of modern times. In this way his social critique seems timeless because it still applies to us about 500 years later.
