All language subtitles for Bosch.The.Garden.of.Dreams.2016.SPANISH.WEBRip.x264-VXT_English

[heart beating]

[light music]

[music continues]

[man, in English] We all bring to
the painting our own experiences,

our own experiences with art.

Who are the "we"? The "we"
are millions of people.

Thousands-- hundreds of thousands of people

who actually go to the Prado Museum,

see the painting in reality.

But the painting is very
well known internationally,

globally, through the Internet.

So many people have visual
access to the painting

long before they even go
and see the painting itself.

People from all over the world,

with all their different cultural
backgrounds, look at the painting

and therefore look at it
in manifold different ways.

When we look at The Garden
of Earthly Delights,

we usually, immediately
look at the interior.

But this is not the way people
started to look at the painting

at the times of Bosch.

It is a triptych,

and usually the triptych
was closed regularly

and only opened for special occasions.

[in Spanish] Going from
darkness... [imitates explosion]

to the chaos when everything begins.

[man, in English] It's
also theatrical moment

to have it closed and then
to open it and enter inside.

I admire and like the patience,

the joy of doing little
details, one by one.

[man, in Spanish] She looks so beautiful

with the peacock on her head.

There's the mermaid again
with the merman in armor.

The owl with long ears.

Painting is naming things correctly.

[in English] Look at this thistle.

I mean, it's just-- It's extravagant.

Look at this... plum maybe?

[in Spanish] There are heaps of fruit,

including apples, pomegranates, berries.

The giraffe, for example,
is innocent and clean.

The pleasure of flying. Who
hasn't dreamed about flying?

[man, in Chinese] This is very funny.

Lots of birds come
shooting out of his body.

There's one there who's
dead, with the deer,

or he's very tired.

And others, you simply
don't know what they are.

Or I don't know what they are. [chuckles]

[in Spanish] Where did all this come from?

From what head?

Where did this Dionysian fantasy come from?

[man, in English] I think maybe
this is the most iconic image

in the painting, and...

Maybe it's a self-portrait, maybe not.

[in Spanish] It must be the
artist at different ages,

with that very pretty dark girl.

[Piñón] I don't know much
about Bosch's psyche,

but I think even he didn't know.

[in English] And that brings
us in a way to the question,

what kind of a man was he?

[intricate piano music]

[music continues]

[man, in English] Hieronymus
Bosch was a mysterious figure

not only because his paintings,

but because we don't
know actually who he was.

And the records that he lived

is in the archives of this brotherhood.

That brotherhood is the oldest
brotherhood in the Netherlands.

It dates back from 1318.

And, of course,

our famous painter
became a member later on.

It is Sicut lilum inter spinas.

It is the coat of arms of this brotherhood.

That means, "See the
lily between the thorns."

And if you were a very big nobleman,

you had the right to shoot swans.

Three times a year, there was a big meal

and they ate swans that were
donated by the noble people.

There are still noble people,
but we do not eat swans anymore.

Because swans are not very nice,

and they are protected right now.

[Nooteboom] What I understood
is that to cook a swan...

they would take the whole skin,

including the feathers, off.

So the animal would be
there completely naked.

But then they boiled them
or cooked them or fried them

and then put the skin,
with the feathers, back on.

It would have all its feathers again,

and there would be the-- yes or
no-- delicious flesh of the swans.

[Noordzy] The popularity
of this brotherhood

was dependent on the fact that the bishop
had given the members of this brotherhood

the right of indulgencia.

[reading in Latin]

[in English] This is the
oldest act of indulgence

of the Brotherhood of St.
Mary that they keep here.

And it dates from 1335,

and it gives the possibility for
a people who worship St. Mary,

it would diminish their
punishment in purgatory.

When you attended services
at the chapel of St. Mary--

and, of course, when you made donations

to the Brotherhood of St. Mary--

it gives you the possibility

to make your stay in purgatory not so long.

[water trickling] -[bells chiming]

[man, in Spanish] Probably, the source
for his images was the market in his town,

with the cactus and strange flowers,

and particularly crustaceans,

that were starting to arrive--
slightly exotic things.

It's really nice that you can see
what Bosch knew and didn't know,

what he'd seen and hadn't seen.

It's obvious he hadn't
seen elephants or giraffes.

[man singing in Dutch]
♪ When the North Sea ♪

♪ Breaks stubbornly On the high dunes ♪

♪ And white flakes of foam ♪

♪ Break apart on the crests ♪

♪ When the surly tide ♪

♪ Crashes on the black basalt ♪

♪ And a gray mist Blankets dike and dune ♪

♪ When at low tide, the beach
Is as desolate as a desert ♪

♪ And the wet west winds Roar with venom ♪

♪ Then fights, my land ♪

♪ My flat land ♪

♪ When rain falls ♪

♪ On streets, squares, borders ♪

♪ On roofs and steeples
Of towering churches ♪

♪ Which are the only
mountains In this flat land ♪

♪ When people are dwarfed
Under the clouds ♪

♪ When the days go by
In dreary regularity ♪

♪ And a round east wind beats
The land down even flatter ♪

♪ Then waits my land ♪

♪ My flat land ♪

[man, in English] This was the
chapel of the Brotherhood of Mary,

of which Jeroen Bosch was a member.

He came mostly every week

to participate in the celebrations

of the Brotherhood of Mary.

[in Spanish] He painted this triptych

for the altar sponsored
by his brotherhood--

the Brotherhood of Our Lady--
which was in his town's church.

It seems he did it with great care,

with great dedication,

because he was a member of
the Brotherhood of Our Lady.

I think he was responsible for
the processions that they had,

for the altar decorations.

[man, in English] He must have
been, to a certain degree,

a learned man himself.

This is what you can infer
from the many paintings

and the diversity of the paintings

and the inventiveness of his work.

He is not a run-of-the-mill
painter, clearly.

He's not a simple craftsman.

[Noordzy] Originally,
he was called van Aken,

Hieronymus van Aken.

He later, in 1504, signed his paintings

by "Hieronymus Bosch,"

but that was his own nickname.

And then he became very well
known as Hieronymus Bosch.

Or, in Spanish, he was, of
course, called El Bosco.

[Falkenburg] We don't even
have a clear portrait of him.

There is a drawing, a later drawing,

that tradition says is a
drawing of Hieronymus Bosch.

We don't even know for sure.

[Piñón] No one can paint this work

without doubting his
capacity to engender a world.

To compete with God.

[Falkenburg] Medieval people
thought there were two books.

Not only the Bible, or the Scriptures,

but also the book of nature,

that both were creations by God.

[birds calling]

What are the words? The
words are the creatures.

The words are the animals, are the plants,

are the human beings.

Everything would somehow contain a trace

of its divine essence of the Creator.

[dramatic string music]

[man, in English] As you
see here at the miniature,

you put them on a table exactly
what we do today in a library--

the same thing, yeah, 500 years ago--

and they stand around and they read,

discuss, look at these manuscripts.

They make us aware of the fact

that it is a shared literary culture

and that the enjoyment of the
images in relation to the text

is something that is part of this sharing.

And this is important
for our understanding,

also, of The Garden of Earthly Delights.

Because you actually share with each other,

and that you know that the other person

standing in front of the
painting may also know.

So there is a--

In art history, people sometimes
use the term "period eye."

[eerie music]

[light upbeat music]

[woman, in French] What the conception
of these tapestries shows us

of the cultural environment
in which they were created

is an extremely positive
vision of the world.

A world that also comes from nature,

a nature which, for men and
women in the Middle Ages

and even at that time of transition
around the 15th century...

was very familiar,

a nature that also acts as
a setting for courtly love.

[upbeat music]

[Falkenburg] All these garden
metaphors were then understood

to be the place where
the lovers get together.

Love is not only love in
the way that we know it,

uh, important as it is
in our lives. [chuckling]

But it is-- It can
encapsulate all the virtues

that a knight, a courtier,
should contemplate,

cultivate, exercise,

play with in a courtly manner.

And of course this is where
Bosch goes over the top.

[music continues]

You go into the inner
gym, inner gym of love.

You-- You try to, if you will,

to build the muscles of love.

[music continues]

The moment suprême

of the story of The Romance of the Rose

is that Amant, the lover,

plucks the rose of the beloved.

And we all know what the plucking means.

[music continues]

[Taburet-Delahaye] Legend has it

that there is only one
way to capture a unicorn,

which is an extremely fierce animal.

Only a young virgin can draw it to her lap.

If it immerses its horn in water,

the water is purified.

But it is also a very
obvious sexual symbol.

It's something very
characteristic of medieval thought

that was developed particularly
around the end of the 15th century,

and that is polysemy-- in
other words, multiple meanings.

We have to imagine that we
are in a pre-Cartesian world,

a non-Cartesian world,

in which men and women in the Middle ages

accepted without any problem

meanings that for us are
opposed to each other,

while for them, they were complementary.

[light music]

[woman, in Spanish] It's
grotesque. It's humorous.

Just as with the choir stalls,
the misericords, where they sat,

the gargoyles, these creatures,

have that common, humorous touch,

but the intention is also moralistic.

This grotesque, for example,

is a kind of crane but
with a monkey on top.

This individual seems like a
kind of friar with a rosary,

but he has a crozier.

It's all around.

Marginal figures, marginal motifs

that you find in the margin
of these kinds of manuscripts.

He blows them up. He makes them larger.

He makes them the main
figures of a huge painting

instead of keeping them
marginalized, so to speak.

[Wijsman] Yeah. All these
interaction of people and fruit.

It directly comes from
margins, the beasts or fruits

that you see in The Garden
of Earthly Delights.

[music continues]

[woman, in Spanish] All the books of hours

have a fairly standard
iconographic repertoire

with the calendar, lives of saints,

scenes from the lives of
Christ and the Virgin.

And almost all have an Office for the Dead,

a kind of requiem mass,

that is exemplary, like the
visions of Tondal the knight.

[Falkenburg] The vision of
Tondal is about an Irish knight.

He's not very pious person.

He has a vision--

his soul being taken out of his body

and is brought into a very gloomy region

where he is being threatened by demons.

He's then being saved by an
angel who suddenly appears,

and the angel then shows
him heaven and hell,

especially hell,

and all the tortures that the
damned souls are subjected to.

And when he wakes up,

the angel tells him that
he has to tell the story

about this terrible vision that he has

and that he has to improve
his life, which he then does.

He becomes a very pious person.

In Bosch, his Garden of Earthly Delights,

the whole setting is given to
the viewer as a dream landscape.

[woman, in French] We know that dreams

are real experiences
we have while sleeping.

There were long philosophical debates

on whether a dream took place
during the course of sleep

or if it was an illusion produced
at the moment we wake up.

Could it be that we don't dream?

[woman speaking French]

[Schwartz] Now we know
that it's not like that.

We do dream while we sleep.

In real time, with colors and sounds.

It's a true simulation of the real world.

Our brain receives little
information from the exterior world.

It is a world formed
exclusively from the interior.

That is, it's formed by our
memories, by our cerebral circuits

which allow us to create perception

while we're awake and while we're asleep.

[speaking French]

What I mean is that we
sleep with the baggage

we have acquired during our life.

The objects that fill our dreams

are those from our daily experiences.

If we dream of birds, it's
because we've seen them.

Maybe they're not the right size

or they're not where they should be,

but the basic elements derive
from everyday experience.

There are things that are
imaginable only in dreams.

[string music]

[music continues]

[chanting, in Latin] "Keep dreams
and ghosts of the night far from us."

[in English] So they pray that
far away should remain dreams--

They don't say "insomnia."
They say "somnia."

They should remain very
far away, the dreams

and the phantasmata of the night.

So here you have paintings
full of all that.

But the monks pray that, in the night,

they don't have to see all this.

So there's something very
forbidding in all that.

When I think of the monks praying
that they shall not have to see it,

how did they look at it?

A good question,

because his paintings
weren't made for monks.

Bosch shows something that is real

and that is actual

and that he criticizes
also in the courtly life.

I mean, all the sins are there.

All the sins are there.

[light dramatic music]

[man, in Spanish] As artists, we have
the ability to animate the inanimate.

I see concomitants here with the comic.

Because it has a lot of
drawing. It has narrative.

Bosch worked by commission.

I know how to please the client,
without ceasing to be yourself

and, if you can, slipping your
own concerns into the work.

I think Bosch did that magnificently.

[Cabrero] He has a technique,

with very fine glazes, full of nuances,

and minimal brushstrokes.

We see in places that he let the drop fall.

He also painted the terminations
with a magnifying glass.

For example, here, the
rouge on this shepherd

is done with lines of brushstrokes,

and these expressive eyes
are done with a detail

that requires a magnifying glass
and an extremely fine brush

and tremendous precision in the stroke.

The layers of color are
done by mixing the pigments

with linseed oil, with egg yolk,

with egg white.

There are many materials,

and those recipes are no longer known.

They've been lost.

-They were his secrets. -They were.

Bosch's family were all painters.

-Yes, his father, his
grandfather. -That's right.

And they passed on those
recipes, like cooking recipes,

as to how to make colors.

-Family secrets. -Hmm.

Yes.

[in Spanish] We'll start
with God the Father.

When you tell me, I'll look
to see if we're at the edge.

-You can look now. -Okay.

[woman, in Spanish]
Thanks to the infra-red,

we can see the underlying drawing,

and the X-ray lets us see all
the stages of the painting.

The surface of the painting now
lets us see what changes were made,

including those done at the
last minute on the surface.

It goes a bit deeper than what is visible.

And it's particularly effective

for seeing the underlying drawing

especially if, as the Flemish did,

he drew in black on a white background.

And that is precisely what Bosch did.

Was he thinking about the kind
of painting that we see now,

or did he think of the concept

in an entirely different fashion?

And all these things, we don't know.

It's like an archaeology.

We do like an archaeology of the image.

But the interesting change that occurs here

is in the type of face of the Creator

and in the direction where he's looking at.

The Creator is not now the
man with the long beard,

which many people associate
with God the Father.

But he has given the Creator
the shape of Christ the Son.

And since Adam and Eve were
created in the image of God,

I think that Bosch wanted
to emphasize their identity

as being created in the
image and likeness of God.

And in order to show that,
he would need to present God

with an image that is very
similar to the human face.

The Creator was looking
in the direction of Adam.

Now, as many people have observed,

the Creator is looking at the viewer.

And he really pierces at you

as if to involve the viewer
in the Creation scene.

[in Spanish] When you look at
those eyes, they speak to you.

When I do a portrait, I like the
person to look at the camera.

Because what those eyes say...

The eyes never lie.

[Maroto] My relationship with The Garden

began long before I joined
the museum, of course.

I used to come here when I was younger.

Well, much younger. That's
almost ancient history.

And the guard opened and
closed the panels every day.

So it's something I knew
from seeing it so often.

In working very directly
with Bosch and his work,

one of the things I most liked studying
was the whole creative process--

how he worked from the underlying
drawing to the surface.

Look at those parallel lines

which he makes in the underlying drawing,

as if he'd applied carmine.

He uses very fine brushes. It
requires great skill to do this.

All of these creatures, all these--

most of them have highlights.

And at those times when the highlight
sticks out, he doesn't care.

But in order to do those things,

he probably had to lay
the painting horizontal

and do it like this...

Because a bit of ink could have dripped,

no matter how thick it was.

It's been variously said that
he drew with his left hand,

with his right,

that he was left-handed, that he wasn't,

that there were two painters.

But in fact, he could move the painting--

put it the right way
up, the other way round.

For example, I'm not left-handed,

but I can make strokes as if I were.

Maybe not outlines, but I can make strokes.

Another thing he always
does is line the contours

with either light or shade.

He lines them with a suitable tone.

For example, this is in the light,

and he lines it with a white tone.

But here, he doesn't want it in the light

because the light's coming from the left,

so he lines it with the
same tone as the cloak.

Everyone doesn't usually do this.

They are completely new
things that he does,

because he draws like a painter
and paints like a drawer.

[string music]

[man, in French] The painter
shows what is invisible.

Bosch also adds his imagination.

Here everything is possible.

[music continues]

[man, in Chinese] Many birds form
shapes as if they were clouds.

I've seen that he, too, paints this.

Yes, I see many links
between this work and mine.

For example, many animals drinking.

I have a work called The Legacy

which shows tigers, bears,
pandas, lions, wolves, goats.

All sharing the water at the last pool.

It's a metaphor for the end of the world.

From the perspective of
eastern civilization,

paintings are narrative scrolls
which have to be unrolled.

Like this painting, Along the
River During the Qingming Festival.

It transmits change in time and space.

It is the city of Kaifeng.

It's a work in which spaces
surge from within time.

That is why The Garden represents
the history of humanity.

[music continues]

[Restrepo] Each of us is going to see
something different in those stories,

but he's telling many
stories and he plays with us.

He plays with the observer.

[in English] I love this, too,
this image of the people--

Almost the idea of
whispering, of secrets and...

one imagines, untruths.

But it looks conspiratorial.

It doesn't look like an
innocent conversation.

[Falkenburg] They are forms of conversation

that actually mirror what we--
and they-- as an audience,

were doing standing in
front of the painting.

-[Nooteboom] Those people had
read the Roman de la rose. -Yes.

They had read many other
Dutch-language fables

and symbolic tales.

They would probably-- which
I would never do-- [chuckles]

But they would probably point to things

and literally touch things
and say this and that

and I think this is this.

[man, in French] Who is the prince?

Who has the money to commission
someone to paint this kind of work?

And then it will be exhibited somewhere.

It's intended to be seen by
people to produce an effect.

[Falkenburg] What we know is
that the painting was seen

in the palace of the
count Henry III of Nassau,

who belonged to the highest
nobility of Burgundian court.

[light music]

[woman] It is most likely

that is was Engelbrecht of Nassau

who gave the commission for the painting.

And he had to take care of both his nephew,

Henry III, and Philip the Fair.

I think that he commissioned
The Garden of Earthly Delights

for their entertainment and education.

Because they were used to this--

have discussion together.

That was the fun.

The fun thing is men and women

having discussions together

about important topics like:

What is natural behavior?

What is courtly behavior?

What is a sin?

Is it sinful to listen to nature,

or is it not?

In a sense, it's also like a mirror,

uh, giving thought for speculation.

[music continues]

[Falkenburg] Fifty years after Bosch dies,

the duke of Alba comes to the Netherlands

in order to suppress the
revolution of the Protestants.

And one of the first things he
does is he goes after the painting.

He confiscates the possessions
of William of Orange

who got the painting through heritage.

[Maroto, in Spanish] William of
Orange was a very important figure

at the court of Charles V.

When Charles V left St. Gudula in Brussels

after abdicating,

he leaned on Philip's shoulder

and on that of William of Orange.

So he was someone very close to them.

But he rose up against Philip

and, of course, abandoned Brussels.

[Falkenburg] William of
Orange flees the country,

and Alba immediately
confiscates the painting.

[Klein] When he came,
the painting was gone.

They have been hiding it.

But Alba really wanted
to have this painting.

It was very important for him,
so he moved heaven and earth.

He even tortured the
custodian of the palace.

They pulled out the custodian's
toenails and fingernails.

They did everything until he
told them where The Garden was.

[upbeat orchestral music]

Philip II bought it in 1591
and brought it to the Escorial.

But it wasn't intended to be among the
religious paintings in the Escorial,

but for the space where the monarch
and his family had their rooms.

[singing aria in Italian]

[woman, in Spanish] Did he torment
himself thinking that perhaps

his destiny could be to go to that
dark, fiery place that is hell?

[man, in English] I'm a bit
skeptical about that interpretation,

I must say.

I think he really enjoyed
the detail of the painting,

really enjoyed looking at it.

One has to remember he's also the king

who commissions Titian to paint the
nudes out of Ovid for his bedroom.

So he was the ascetic king we
associate with El Escorial.

But he didn't mind
looking at a little flesh.

[man singing aria]

[man, in Spanish] Philip II was a man
who believed that his deeds on earth

would be judged by God.

He was convinced of that.

So he surrounded himself with
things that could inspire...

his religious and moral concepts of life.

[singing continues]

The Garden of Earthly Delights
was painted with a function.

It was made for certain reasons

that were in perfect harmony
with Philip II's morals.

[Iglesias] Philip II was
a great Renaissance prince

and one of the most important
statesmen that we've had.

He was an intelligent, cultured man.

So I understand his
fascination with Bosch's work

as the fascination of someone

who knows that appearance and
what he is told is not enough.

[opera continues]

[Falkenburg] There is a
legend that Philip II,

when he was dying here in the Escorial,

he had an image--

a painting by Bosch--
brought to his deathbed.

And we know from certain letters
that he advises his children

to carefully look at
the paintings by Bosch.

It seems to suggest that, for Philip II,

paintings by Hieronymus Bosch
contain some form of wisdom

that he can learn from
even on his deathbed.

[light music]

[Büttner] Sigüenza, the
librarian of the Escorial,

wrote on this painting, um,

the king's love for Hieronymus Bosch,

called this painting,
because of this detail,

the madroño painting.

[Max] I think that in the first
recorded mention of the painting,

it's called a painting showing
the variety of the world.

Which I think is very accurate

because this is almost encyclopedic.

The title has always struck
me as very deeply ironic,

to say that this is a
garden or earthly delight.

The garden of delights? Yes.

Garden of earthly delights? No.

[in English] It's a really good
title. That's why it's lasted so long.

And we don't know what the
title was, do we? I think.

[woman, in Spanish] It was first
called Variety of the World.

Father Sigüenza also
referred to it as that.

It was he who encouraged
Philip II to acquire it,

because he said that it wasn't heretical.

It was also called the strawberry painting

because as well as being a
symbol of special delights,

it's ephemeral.

The red fruits that are depicted
are consumed immediately,

and it is an allegory of how pleasure
is also ephemeral in this life.

[string music]

[Rushdie] Those two ideas of the garden--

that it's a place of peace
and meditation and reflection,

or it's a place of extreme
violence and surrealism

and, you know, death

and bizarre metamorphosis
and so on and so on.

I mean, that is in his mind--

Well, I put it in his mind
because that's my idea of Bosch.

I just think this is a painting

like nothing else in the history of art.

[Falkenburg] When the angels
changed their shape into monsters,

they still have wings?

Dark wings, like bats?

Yeah, it's really a beautiful
miniature, isn't it?

[Falkenburg] So this whole understanding
of evil being in the world...

not only by disobedience

but in order to be equal to God,

as a consequence, the bad angels--

the wicked angels, the disobedient angels--

are being driven out of heaven

so they lose the likeness in
which they were created by God.

[dark music]

This story has been represented
by Bosch in the Haywain Triptych,

but it's only alluded to

on the exterior of The
Garden of Earthly Delights

by display of dark and white clouds.

A very dramatic play on
dark and white clouds.

[music continues]

[music continues]

[Falkenburg] "God spoke, and it
was created, and it stood fast."

It stood.

What we see is one huge contradiction

of that sentence.

Nothing stands as it is.

[birds calling]

We know that using a-- a fake owl,

birds would come, fascinated by the owl,

and they would be stuck on the branches.

And then you could take
the birds from the tree.

So this phenomenon, which actually
exists in reality, in nature,

was seen as a metaphor for the devil

who is able to tempt and attract birds--

which at the time were freely
associated with human souls.

[bird calls continue]

[woman, in Spanish] It's very
interesting how the drama evolves.

These little black monsters
coming out of the water

are already starting to show that
the seed of evil is in paradise

and it comes from the purifying,
life-giving element of water.

[Barceló] It's like the
evolution of the species.

You could do a Darwinian
reading of the painting,

based on the mineral from the
jewels of the almost inorganic world

to these kinds of early
batrachians-- toads and salamanders.

Here it's starting to have three heads,

and it's forming a shell, external bones.

It's a metamorphosis.

[Falkenburg] When they
represent the Creation,

they represent two moments.

One, the creation of
Eve from the rib of Adam

in the Garden of Eden.

And the second moment
is when God the Creator

brings Eve to Adam.

Bringing together is understood

as what was called the
institution of marriage.

Bosch has changed something.

It is not the marriage that he's depicting,

nor is it the creation of
Eve from the rib of Adam.

The Bible says that God put Adam to sleep.

And in this dream, he foresaw...

the redemption of mankind on the cross,

where Christ-- who is called
the new Adam, the new man--

redeems the sins of the old Adam.

[light music]

And then it is striking to see

how Bosch depicts the Creator
with the face of Christ

and Eve in a fashion as
if they are marrying.

Who is the new Eve? That is the Church.

If this interpretation is correct...

Adam is actually dreaming.

Adam is having a vision.

Adam has a dream vision.

[music continues]

[man, in Spanish] Bosch painted his
works about the creation of humanity.

I've taken a part of the Haywain

that represents the expulsion
of Adam and Eve from paradise.

I've taken a part from the
left of the three panels.

It's a "cryptic."

[Restrepo] He gives them permission
to have sex and reproduce.

So it isn't the sexual
relationship that is sinful.

It's the desire,

represented in the fruits
that are in the painting.

[Barceló] It looks like they're taking
LSD, doesn't it? With those red tablets.

It's like the ticket to hell.

[music continues]

[Falkenburg] So God sends them
out after the Fall into the world.

to procreate

and to govern the world.

Well, actually, in the central panel even,

you start to see that the
world is governing man,

not man is governing the world.

[Rushdie] Everybody is in
that kind of state of nature,

but what is happening in the
state of nature is... madness.

[in Spanish] It's like candy
for children, that pink color.

The painting seems to have flavor too.

This invites you to come in and enjoy

and... and to participate.

That's for certain. Yeah.

[in Spanish] It's like they'd
released pheromones in an ant hill.

[funky music]

[music continues]

[in Spanish] Perhaps heaven
is the earth. It's the center.

It's the question we ask, isn't it?

For the profane spectator,
heaven is in the center.

[Iglesias, in Spanish] It isn't
the paradise created by God,

but it does have to do
with that image of a place

where you don't have to work,

where you can practice sex in any way.

They're bathing. They're reveling.

But, at the same time, there
is a constant sense of danger,

of grief, of pain.

[man, in English] They don't seem to
be having a particularly great time.

And, yes, there is a lot of eroticism,

but it's very cold eroticism somehow.

-It's not-- It's not a sexy
picture. -Acted out. No, it's not.

It's sort of acted and
somewhat forced in some cases.

[in Spanish] Essentially,
the greatest sin was lust,

lust as the most terrible sin

which was the cause of everything.

It's what we see here.

Lust is an important element.

It seems that it's the essential center.

[man] I think one of my
favorite parts of this painting

is the two figures who are making
love inside a mussel shell.

And you just think, what is going
on there? Why are they doing that?

But it's one of those images
that remains with you,

and you always think about this
as this totally surreal, insane...

One striking thing is this arm.

This arm is reaching out for a fish that,

according to many art historians,

is a symbol of-- of lust.

Actually, of the male sexual organ.

The position of the hand
and the two balls...

tell you something about what
is going on inside this cup.

[Restrepo, in Spanish] They're having fun.

They don't seem to be harming anyone.

They suddenly meet. They share the fruit.

They frolic. Those ones are kissing.

[Elliott] I'm fascinated by the
degree of realism in certain points.

I mean, if you look at the
two Africans, for instance.

He's quite clearly seen Africans--

probably in Antwerp or in the
Netherlands-- who were slaves.

-There was a slave market.
-As he has the birds.

There are, like, eight or
ten birds-- He has the birds.

...that you can identify, as a biologist.

[man] Are these birds good
things? Are they scary?

I, personally, would be quite
scared by a giant kingfisher.

But it's-- No one in the painting
seems that bothered by them.

It's a sort of strange, upside-down world.

[Onfray, in French] We see that the
birds, animals, minerals, vegetables--

they all work in harmony

and in a different way
from the earthly order.

At times, butterflies are bigger than men

and men are smaller than ducks.

It's a diverse, manifold
world but, at the same time,

it contains the truth of Christianity.

You needn't wait for
that truth from a priest.

This is an artist's truth.

[Falkenburg] Originally,
this fountain was, uh...

had a round shape.

It's almost like a bowl.

Leaflike.

It seems to have some leaflike structure.

But here, you clearly see an egg form.

If we look at the triptych in Lisbon

showing the temptations of St. Anthony,

we see a paten

and we see a frog standing on the paten.

And the frog holds, actually,
an egg on top of his head.

And if you zoom out from this,

you will see, in the central panel,

Christ standing next to the altar,

with a crucifix on it,

to emphasize that that is the real altar.

And then in the foreground, you see
a mock-- a parody of the Eucharist.

If eggs come with the association

of parody of the Host in a triptych,

then he runs here the risk
that the entire triptych

is being seen as a awful parody

on the use of altarpieces
in Eucharistic context.

So for a painter who is-- complies entirely

with traditional religious convictions,

it would have been extremely problematic,

not to use other words,

to create a triptych that could be seen

as a parody on that
very Eucharistic ritual.

That is impossible.

So we have, on the one hand,

a religiously very traditional painter,

who, on the other hand, artistically,

is a fantastic innovator.

[woman, in Spanish] There is a marvelous
futuristic element in the painting.

Some buildings that
could almost be by Gaudí.

[man, in Spanish] They seem
to be made with crab remains.

It's like a mixture of
animals and of modern bombs.

It's really the vision of an artist

who is capable, in some way,

of foreseeing a future

much crueler than his
contemporaries could imagine.

Today we would-- This is--

These look like factories.

It does remind me of sort of a
children's fantasy of a candy factory.

[Barceló] We are not in a
world meant to be lived in.

It's a fever nightmare
or something like that.

It's like a great feverish day.

[woman] ♪ In the land
Of gods and monsters ♪

♪ I was an angel ♪

♪ Livin' in the garden of evil ♪

♪ Screwed up, scared ♪

♪ Doin' anything that I needed ♪

♪ Shinin' like a fiery beacon ♪

♪ You got that medicine I need ♪

♪ Fame, liquor, love Give it to me slowly ♪

♪ Put your hands on my waist Do it softly ♪

♪ Me and God We don't get along ♪

♪ So now I sing ♪

♪ No one's gonna Take my soul away ♪

♪ I'm livin' like Jim Morrison ♪

♪ Headed towards A fucked-up holiday ♪

♪ Motel sprees, sprees And I'm singin' ♪

♪ Fuck, yeah, give it to me ♪

♪ This is heaven What I truly want ♪

♪ It's innocence lost ♪

♪ Innocence lost ♪

[chatter]

[Restrepo, in Spanish] I saw their
fascination when they were looking at it,

how they laughed, how they
were indifferent to paradise

and how they were fascinated by hell.

In some way, I think hell is much more like

the idea we could have
today of having a good time

than that pure, untouched nature,
where water springs forth,

while here there are animals
transformed into perverse monsters.

There's a rabbit doing terrible harm

to that poor man who's upside down.

The animals join with the demons

to torture those poor people
who were eating fruit.

[Rushdie] Most of this is chaos

and painful and... scary

and incredibly contemporary.

The great thing about this painting

is that it doesn't look at
all like... an old picture.

And how do you get out of there?

That's why Dante drew a map of hell...

[flute plays] -...to be
able to get out of hell.

[flute continues]

[in Spanish] There are
intervals-- [hums notes]

...that are pure intervals. [hums notes]

However-- [hums notes]

...one of the intervals
found in the painting

was known as diabolus in
musica-- "the devil in music"--

and represented a forbidden interval.

So it's important to know that this was
undoubtedly planned with a musician.

I can read it. [humming notes]

Yeah. It's very legible.

After 500 years, it's incredible.

[drums beating]

[man, in Spanish] The
instruments in the painting

still exist today.

They're not so far removed
in their form or their use,

as many of them are folk instruments.

The bagpipe-- that stomach--

is about to be cut by a knife
emerging from some ears,

and it seems to be on a table.

This is the same type of bagpipe.

It has a blowpipe, it has a chanter,

and it has a fairly long drone.

There's a chirimia.

Chirimias are no longer used,
but there are still dulzainas.

The dulzaina has the classic shape

as regards where the
reed goes, which is here,

and also the bell.

The hurdy-gurdy has a crank

that moves a shaft that
runs across the instrument.

Bosch places a person
in charge of that crank.

It has to be turned
constantly to produce a sound.

Another thing that catches our eye

is a bowl that could contain
grease for lubricating the shaft,

because otherwise the
hurdy-gurdy sounds bad.

[hurdy-gurdy music]

[Falkenburg] Some of these
images, like this huge salamander,

with an enormous belly,

is painted in exceptionally--
in exceptional detail.

And then still changed.

[woman] It was finished.
It was finished even.

And inside his belly, we find

at least one human being.

Possibly-- Is this an arm
of another? I don't know.

And I'm saying this, of course,

based on the image that you
find in the central panel.

-[woman] And a book. -And a book. A book.

So why did he change it?

[dark music]

[in Spanish] When you remove...

the narrative from the work,

the background becomes the protagonist.

Remove the narrative and you're left
with the architecture, the stage.

And first, artists appear on the stage,

artists who, 200, 300, or 500 years later,

in some way meet up again.

[dark music]

[Falkenburg] The followers
of Bosch were inspired

not only by the way he
drew devils and demons,

but they were also inspired by the way--

how he suggests the morphic
shapes in the landscape.

And Salvador Dalí picked
out the most obvious example

in The Garden of Earthly
Delights --his face,

with the nose and the mouth

and the kind of a sleepy eye.

Not only do the animals draw
its features in the rock,

they draw the features in my mind.

So I am-- [clicks tongue] infected

by the same dark power by seeing this.

This interaction between viewer and image

is something that we cannot escape.

[in Spanish] These are all portraits.

He modified himself.

He added horns, tattooed... his eye.

I was looking for metamorphosis,

and I found these practices
which are almost unknown to us

and which connect me so
much to that part of Bosch.

And that relationship that
comes to us from our culture,

with mysticism, with pain, with pleasure.

I've been calling it Bosch's Hell,

but for me it isn't a hell.

It's still limbo.

[piano music]

[woman singing in German] ♪
Our Father who art in heaven ♪

♪ Hallowed be thy name ♪

♪ Thy kingdom come ♪

♪ Thy will be done ♪

♪ On earth as it is in heaven ♪

♪ Give us this day Our daily bread ♪

♪ And forgive us Our trespasses ♪

♪ As we forgive those ♪

♪ Who trespass against us ♪

♪ And lead us not Into temptation ♪

♪ But deliver us from evil ♪

[Falkenburg] Where is my likeness?

Is my image and likeness
more like the Creator,

or is my image and likeness
more like the Tree-man?

They offer two perspectives.

They also position me in the triangle

of the lines of vision where they meet.

[Nooteboom] You know, you're not
allowed to have a favorite figure.

but he is my favorite figure.

The way he looks, with
sort of a world weariness.

Hmm? Knowing what he has on
his back and on his head.

[Piñón] The nightmare feeds the dream.

The dream isn't innocent.

Life isn't innocent.
Creation isn't innocent.

So there's panic, there's terror.

But above all, what is underneath,

what is not visible.

You see a lot,

but there's a lot more
to see that isn't shown.

Where is there a rabbit? I saw it.

There's another rabbit.

Where is it?

There was another rabbit.

There's another rabbit somewhere.

In paradise?

Yes, of course. There
it is. It's wonderful.

It's like Totoro-- from the
Japanese cartoon, isn't it?

I think Totoro comes from here.

The look in the rabbit's eyes

is a mixture of indifference
and evil, isn't it?

The rabbit's eye is very striking.

It has a kind of gleam in its eyes.

Also, it's a rabbit playing a horn

and with a tool similar to one
that I use for my ceramic oven.

[Nooteboom] That painting
has been standing there--

or hanging there all these years,

emanating its force,

its soul or whatever you would call it.

People before the French Revolution,

after the French Revolution.

People before Marxism and after.

And people before Auschwitz
and after Auschwitz.

Which means that the
painting has all the time

remained the same material object,

consisting of wood and paint,

but that the eyes belong to heads

of which the minds had completely changed.

[man] Bosch is very influential
for several generations

and then hugely successful with viewers
throughout history up until today.

This is a very busy room in this museum.

But after about 1570 or so,
you don't find any more artists

who are painting Bosch-like paintings.

Slowly, as new scientific
attitudes emerge in the world,

the worldview of Bosch is
losing ground, I would say.

Already in Patinir,

you find that the realistic
impulse is more present here,

and that's why such a
great focus on landscape

than in Bosch where it's all fantasy.

[Büttner] If he is staring
at you, you are his next.

So you are his next passenger.

And you can decide whether
you want to go to hell

or whether you want to go to heaven.

[Falkenburg] You have to
understand the metaphor--

the biblical metaphor of the broad way

and the narrow way, the narrow gate,

that leads you to paradise

and the broad road that
leads you to perdition.

And that is, in essence,
what Bosch also teaches us.

Don't simply trust the
outward appearance of things.

Try to see through things.

[vocalizing]

[continues vocalizing]

[man, in Spanish] I made it very big,

area by area,

drawing by drawing.

Paradise, the garden of earthly delights,

and hell.

[in French] What's important in
life isn't culture. It's life.

It's people. It's to not
kill, to not harm others,

to not increase the misery in the world.

This painting is wonderful
because that's what it says.

If it were necessary to
destroy works of art,

we'd have to destroy
many, but not this one.

[man] Part of the pleasure
is exactly not being able

to decipher what's going on necessarily.

And I think a lot of it
remains very memorable

even though you have no
idea what it's about.

So you have this urge
to complete the story.

So, yes, one could write
a-- I'm sure people have.

You could write a novel
about this painting,

you know, very easily.

A novel with a thousand stories.

It's as if he wanted to tell us
that his works are like books.

This could be a fantastic opera.

Counterpoint, polyphony.

There's a dance here, an immense dance.

It's enormously theatrical.

All the passions are
here-- desires, fantasies.

I look at it very pictorially.

I say to myself, why is it so moving?

And the answer, to me, is because it works.

Perhaps it would be the equivalent

to something like Dante's Divine
Comedy or Balzac's Human Comedy.

It's an encyclopedic painting,

and it's also extremely poetic.

He's talking about freedom.

There's a bird, and he's setting it free.

I've never liked interpretations.

I prefer literalness.

There are so many
interpretations that really...

I can't decide which.

He's fooling us. It seems
like a pretty melody, but--

Then he goes in there and--

To explain what this means,
we'd have to invent words.

Huh.

Hmm.

[Nooteboom] It's what I
mean by "different eyes."

You know? Because what most people see

is themselves.

[light string music]

[Falkenburg] If we
realize that the painting

is a mirror image of us

standing in front of the painting...

immediately when we look at the interior,

we start dreaming.

[music continues]

That is the phenomenal invention of Bosch,

to create this kind of
machine, this active machina,

to fire the imagination of the viewer

and to push the impulse
of interpretation...

without ever giving us a clue,

except for the face of Christ.

He looks at me.

And the devil. [chuckles]

[museum visitors chattering]

[string music]

[Falkenburg] The painting
wants to involve the viewer.

It wants to be understood,

but it does not want to be solved entirely.

The author does not want
you to solve the mystery.

He wants you to remain in the mystery.

[woman singing in German]