Little is known for certain of the life of Hieronymus Bosch or of the commissions or influences that may have formed the basis for the iconography of his work. His birthdate, education and patrons remain unknown. There is no surviving record of Bosch's thoughts or evidence as to what attracted and inspired him to such an individual mode of expression.[74] Through the centuries art historians have struggled to resolve this question yet conclusions remain fragmentary at best. Scholars have debated Bosch's iconography more extensively than that of any other Netherlandish artist.[75] His works are generally regarded as enigmatic, leading some to speculate that their content refers to contemporaneous esoteric knowledge since lost to history.
Although Bosch’s career flourished during the High Renaissance, he lived in an area where the beliefs of the medieval Church still held moral authority.[76] He would have been familiar with some of the new forms of expression, especially those in Southern Europe, although it is difficult to attribute with certainty which artists, writers and conventions had a bearing on his work.[75]
José de Sigüenza is credited with the first extensive critique of The Garden of Earthly Delights, in his 1605 History of the Order of St. Jerome.[77] He argued against dismissing the painting as either heretical or merely absurd, commenting that the panels "are a satirical comment on the shame and sinfulness of mankind".[77] The art historian Carl Justi observed that the left and center panels are drenched in tropical and oceanic atmosphere, and concluded that Bosch was inspired by "the news of recently discovered Atlantis and by drawings of its tropical scenery, just as Columbus himself, when approaching terra firma, thought that the place he had found at the mouth of the Orinoco was the site of the Earthly Paradise".[78] The period in which the triptych was created was a time of adventure and discovery, when tales and trophies from the New World sparked the imagination of poets, painters and writers.[79] Although the triptych contains many unearthly and fantastic creatures, Bosch still appealed in his images and cultural references to an elite humanist and aristocratic audience. Bosch reproduces a scene from Martin Schongauer's engraving Flight into Egypt.[80]
Conquest in Africa and the East provided both wonder and terror to European intellectuals, as it led to the conclusion that Eden could never have been an actual geographical location. "The Garden" references exotic travel literature of the 15th century through the animals, including lions and a giraffe, in the left panel. The giraffe has been traced to Cyriac of Ancona, a travel writer known for his visits to Egypt during the 1440s. The exoticism of Cyriac's sumptuous manuscripts may have inspired Bosch's imagination.[81]
The charting and conquest of this new world made real regions previously only idealised in the imagination of artists and poets. At the same time, the certainty of the old biblical paradise began to slip from the grasp of thinkers into the realms of mythology. In response, treatment of the Paradise in literature, poetry and art shifted towards a self-consciously fictional Utopian representation, as exemplified by the writings of Thomas More (1478–1535).[82]
Albrecht Dürer was an avid student of exotic animals, and drew many sketches based on his visits to European zoos. Dürer visited 's-Hertogenbosch during Bosch's lifetime, and it is likely the two artists met, and that Bosch drew inspiration from the German's work.[83]
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