You’ve seen the painting, but you’ve never seen it up close like this! An interactive look at The Garden of Earthly Delights lets you zoom in on the details of the hi-res image and hear the stories behind them. Or you can take a virtual guided tour of the painting, and see all the narrated details. For example, the scene above is in the far right corner of the triptych. The narration tells us:
An ink jar is dangling from the mouth of a helmeted demon. A man wearing a pale-red robe and a pig dressed up as a nun try to persuade a soul to sign a document. This is a serious legal document, the red seals are testimony enough. But what exactly is this man signing for?
Maybe they want the man to sign a pact with the devil to sell his soul. To make it look more convincing, the three have dressed up as a knight, nun and clerk, respectively. The nude man is on to them, it seems, as he is casting anxious looks at the viewer, as if pleading for help. At the same time he seems to be warning us: Don’t fall for the devil’s tricks!
The severed foot? That has its own story. The interactive feature was made to promote a series of three Dutch documentaries about Hieronymus Bosch and his creations. -via Metafilter