In the high distance of the background, above the hybrid stone formations, four groups of people and creatures are seen in flight. On the immediate left a human male rides on a chthonic solar eagle-lion. The human carries a triple-branched tree of life on which perches a bird; according to Fränger "a symbolic bird of death". Fränger believes the man is intended to represent a genius, "he is the symbol of the extinction of the duality of the sexes, which are resolved in the ether into their original state of unity".[47] To their right a knight with a dolphin tail sails on a winged fish. The knight's tail curls back to touch the back of his head, which references the common symbol of eternity: the snake biting its own tail. On the immediate right of the panel, a winged youth soars upwards carrying a fish in his hands and a falcon on his back.[47] According to Belting, in these passages Bosch's "imagination triumphs ... the ambivalence of [his] visual syntax exceeds even the enigma of content, opening up that new dimension of freedom by which painting becomes art."[21] Fränger titled his chapter on the high background "The Ascent to Heaven", and wrote that the airborne figures were likely intended as a link between 'what is above' and 'what is below', just as the left and right hand panels represent 'what was' and 'what will be'.[48]
The right panel (220 × 97.5 cm, 87 × 38.4 in) illustrates Hell, the setting of a number of Bosch paintings. Bosch depicts a world in which humans have succumbed to the temptations of the devil and reap eternal damnation. The tone of this final panel strikes a harsh contrast to those preceding it. The scene is set at night, and the natural beauty that adorned the earlier panels is noticeably absent. Compared to the warmth of the center panel, the right wing possesses a chilling quality—rendered through cold colourisation and frozen waterways—and presents a tableau that has shifted from the paradise of the center image to a spectacle of cruel torture and retribution.[44] In a single, densely detailed scene, the viewer is made witness to cities on fire in the background; war, torture chambers, infernal taverns, and demons in the midground; and mutated animals feeding on human flesh in the foreground.[49] The nakedness of the human figures has lost all its eroticism, and many now attempt to cover their genitalia and breasts with their hands.
Large explosions in the background throw light through the city gate and spill forth onto the water in the midground; according to writer Walter S. Gibson, "their fiery reflection turning the water below into blood".[23] The light illuminates a road filled with fleeing figures, while hordes of tormentors prepare to burn a neighbouring village.[50] A short distance away, a rabbit carries an impaled and bleeding corpse, while a group of victims above are thrown into a burning lantern.[51] The foreground is populated by a variety of distressed, condemned figures. Some are shown vomiting or excreting, others are crucified by harp and lute, in a hallucinatory depiction of the consequences of sin. A choir sings from a score inscribed on a pair of buttocks,[44] part of a group that has been described as the "Musicians' Hell".[52]
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bad advice
http://www.last.fm/user/snowcampsoldier