The exterior (shutters): The Path of Life | |
Artist | Hieronymus Bosch |
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Year | 1500—1502 |
Location | Madrid |
Haywain is a triptych panel painting by Hieronymus Bosch in the Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain, painted after 1510. This dating is based on the dendrochronological research of the panels. The centre panel measures 140 by 100 cm, and the wings measure 147 by 66 cm. A second version is in El Escorial. The outside shutters of the triptych are titled The Path of Life. They feature a character who is a version of Bosch's The Wayfarer.
The Haywain triptych has a similar narrative to The Garden of Earthly Delights. The left panel shows God as he creates Eve. Unlike the Garden, though, a narrative sequence flows through the panel in different scenes. At the top, the rebel angels are cast out of Heaven while God sits enthroned, the angels turning into insects as they break through the clouds. Below this, God creates Eve from the rib of Adam. Next, Adam and Eve find the serpent and the tree; the serpent offers them an apple. Finally, at the lowest part of the panel, the angel forces the two out of the Garden of Eden. Adam speaks with the angel; Eve looks ahead to the right in a melancholic pose.
The central panel features a massive wagon of hay surrounded by a multitude of figures engaged in a variety of sins, not just the sin of lust which dominates the Garden of Earthly Delights. In the center panel Bosch shows Christ in the sky, not paralleled in the Garden. An angel on top of the wagon looks to the sky, praying, whereas none of the other figures see Christ looking down on the world. The rightward bow of the figures around the wagon provides the force for the viewer’s eye to move with them on their journey and the cart is drawn by infernal beings which drag everyone to hell, depicted on the right panel.
The forward kinetic motion of the participants moves the viewer from present-day sin into unadulterated torture in the realms of Hell. The procession on the left side of this panel bends back into the middle ground, but the right side figures continue in a straight line as the wagon, giving the viewer a more evident progress into damnation.[1]
King Philip II of Spain purchased two copies of the work, both signed, one of which hangs in The Prado and the other of which remains at El Escorial.[2]