It’s not easy being tasked with painting a biblically inspired image so viscerally impactful that it forces humans to grapple with the consequences of sin. It’s also not easy capturing the story of the man who performed that task in the 15th century. That’s probably why the new graphic novel Delights: A Story of Hieronymus Bosch took Berkeley-based author and artist Guy Colwell nine years to complete.
The epic book depicts the Dutch painter in a labor of love (and obsession) as he creates his world-famous The Garden of Earthly Delights. The triptych famously features a central image of humans in unrestrained commune with fantastic animals and a technicolor version of nature. To the left of that image is a reflection of a still-peaceful Eden. To the right is a depiction of a despondent, squalid hellscape very much in line with Bosch’s earlier, notoriously dark work.
How Bosch came to his final vision for The Garden has been the subject of much speculation over the years. Colwell is clear in the graphic novel’s introduction that his version of events utilizes a combination of historical fact and conjecture.
“I looked at various suppositions, postulates and theories about Garden and the artist,” Colwell writes, “and decided I could boil down and twist around some of the most plausible and put them into the form of a fictional story that I hoped would provide delight to readers, as well as a glimpse of life in the 15th century.”
In the book, we see Bosch approached by two “lascivious lords” who commission a painting of “beauty and pleasure … with no shame or guilt.” Bosch quickly goes about sketching as many nude models as he can find and acquiring the aged oak panels on which he’ll paint. All the while, he works to keep his work hidden from the curious religious minds around him. Bosch, a man of faith himself, worries that The Garden might put his afterlife in jeopardy and wrestles with what the final painting should look like.
Delights is at its best in the moments where Bosch’s imagination (and Colwell’s) is permitted to run wild. At one point, a walk in the woods turns into a paranoid nightmare where Bosch is pursued by monsters, devils and the many naked people from his painting. “I’ve had to dispute with myself whether my painting is really based on religion or an unholy act of frivolous perversion,” Bosch says to himself. “I live with a terror that for a few coins I will have to face an unhappy judgement.”
A full analysis of the painting makes its way into Delights as Bosch is forced to justify its existence to local churchmen. (Colwell says this sequence was inspired by the Spanish Inquisition’s examination of the painting when it was relocated to Spain.)
In the end, Delights is a thought-provoking reminder of Bosch’s bold, curious and (in many ways) disturbing mind. Colwell has done a thorough job imagining what Bosch went through in the course of creating The Garden of Earthly Delights. As we watch him wrestle with his demons, questioning his own moral compass at every step, it’s a reminder of the value of artists everywhere who are willing to challenge not just others, but themselves. That we’re still wondering about Bosch this many centuries later is a solid indication that it’s worth it.
‘Delights: A Story of Hieronymus Bosch’ by Guy Colwell is out now, via Fantagraphics.
Colwell will sign copies of the book at San Francisco’s 111 Minna Gallery on Sept. 7, 2024, between noon and 6 p.m.
