Fränger's thesis stimulated others to examine The Garden more closely. Writer Carl Linfert also senses the joyfulness of the people in the center panel, but rejects Fränger's assertion that the painting is a "doctrinaire" work espousing the "guiltless sexuality" of the Adamite sect.[97] While the figures engage in amorous acts without any suggestion of the forbidden, Linfert points to the elements in the center panel suggesting death and temporality: some figures turn away from the activity, seeming to lose hope in deriving pleasure from the passionate frolicking of their cohorts. Writing in 1969, E. H Gombrich drew on a close reading of Genesis and the Gospel According to Saint Matthew to suggest that the central panel is, according to Linfert, "the state of mankind on the eve of the Flood, when men still pursued pleasure with no thought of the morrow, their only sin the unawareness of sin."[97]
Because Bosch was such a distinctly unique and visionary artist, his influence has not spread as widely as that of other major painters of his era. However, there have been instances of later artists incorporating elements of The Garden of Earthly Delights into their own work. Pieter Brueghel the Elder (c. 1525–1569) in particular directly acknowledged Bosch as an important influence and inspiration,[98][99] and incorporated many elements of The Garden of Earthly Delights's inner right panel in several of his most popular works. Brueghel's painting Mad Meg depicts a peasant woman leading an army of women to pillage Hell, while his The Triumph of Death (c. 1562) echoes the monstrous Hellscape of The Garden, and utilizes, according to the Antwerp Royal Museum of Fine Arts, the same "unbridled imagination and the fascinating colours".[100]
While the Italian court painter Giuseppe Arcimboldo (c. 1527–1593) did not create Hellscapes, he painted a body of strange and "fantastic" vegetable portraits—generally heads of people composed of plants, roots, webs and various other organic matter. These strange portraits rely on and echo a motif that was in part inspired by Bosch's willingness to break from strict and faithful representations of nature.[101] David Teniers the Younger (c. 1610–1690) was a Flemish painter who quoted both Bosch and Breughel throughout his career in such works as his versions of the Temptation of St Anthony, the Rich Man in Hell, and his version of Mad Meg.
During the early 20th century, Bosch's work enjoyed a popular resurrection. The early surrealists' fascination with dreamscapes, the autonomy of the imagination, and a free-flowing connection to the unconscious brought about a renewed interest in his work. Bosch's imagery struck a chord with Joan Miró[103] and Salvador Dalí[104] in particular. Both knew his paintings firsthand, having seen The Garden of Earthly Delights in the Museo del Prado, and both regarded him as an art-historical mentor. Miró’s The Tilled Field contains several parallels to Bosch's Garden: similar flocks of birds; pools from which living creatures emerge; and oversize disembodied ears all echo the Dutch master’s work.[103] When André Breton wrote his first Surrealist Manifesto in 1924, his historical precedents as inclusions named only Gustave Moreau, Georges Seurat and Uccello. However, the Surrealist movement soon rediscovered Bosch and Breughel, who quickly became popular among the Surrealist painters. René Magritte and Max Ernst[103] both were inspired by Bosch's The Garden of Earthly Delights.
In 2009, the Prado selected The Garden of Earthly Delights as one of the museum's fourteen most important paintings, to be displayed in Google Earth at a resolution of 14,000 megapixels.[105]
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