The Garden of Earthly Delights
1505 · El Prado, Madrid
Three panels run from Eden to hell, with a whole naked humanity climbing into giant fruit in between. Nobody has settled what it means.
★ 10.0
The Art canon
Sourced and hung.
Every work chosen by hand and annotated for why it matters.
Browse all 704 works or filter by movement, subject, place, and artist.
Browse all 704 works or filter by movement, subject, place, and artist.
The Temptation of Saint Anthony (Bosch)
1505 · Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon
Flying fish, reading toads and a burning village, and in the middle of it Anthony kneels and blesses a small Christ, entirely undistracted.
★ 7.2
Christ Carrying the Cross (Bosch)
1516 · Museum voor Schone Kunsten (Ghent), Ghent
A crush of leering faces fills every inch, and Christ moves through the middle of it with his eyes shut.
★ 6.8
The Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last Things
1490 · El Prado, Madrid
The whole panel is a giant eye, with Christ in the pupil and the words Beware, beware, God sees. It was made for a tabletop.
★ 6.5
Ship of Fools
1500 · Louvre, Paris
A monk and a nun bawl a song over a lute while somebody vomits over the side. The boat has no rudder, which is the point.
★ 6.3
Death and the Miser
1500 · National Gallery of Art, Washington, District of Columbia
Death comes through the door while an angel points to the crucifix and a demon offers one more bag of gold. The man has not chosen.
★ 5.9
Cutting the Stone
1494 · El Prado, Madrid
A quack in a funnel hat cuts the stone of madness out of a man's head, and what comes out is a flower.
★ 5.7
St. John the Evangelist on Patmos
1500 · Berlin State Museums, Berlin
The lyrical Bosch, all calm light and wide landscape, except for the small insect-demon with a human face tending a fire in the corner.
★ 5.4
Allegory of Gluttony and Lust
1500 · Yale Art Gallery, New Haven
A man rides a wine barrel while swimmers chase a floating pie. It was sawn off the bottom of the Ship of Fools.
★ 5.2