Hi, recently my professor asked my class to answer this question about Bosch’s symobolism:
What does the cherry represent in his work?
I am sorry I don’t have the exact piece of art or anyother information. I will try to find it out on Wednesday and post again.
Thanks for your input.
Tina
I suppose you’re talking about Hieronymus Bosch’s famous triptych The Garden of Earthly Delights. The middle panel, “Earthly Delights,” is displayed at the Prado in SPain between “Heaven,” and “Hell.”
Now, I’m no expert - but this question is an excellent example of what has always irritated me about liberal arts. There is no rigor to “What does the cherry represent in Hieronymus Bosch’s work?” unless some has asked him. You may ask what it represents to the viewer, or what what many scholars believe it represents, but for all we know, Bosch found a sale on red paint at his local Flemish paint store, and if had painted it the previous month when orange was on sale, we’d have had pumpkins being tossed around Eden.
Having thus vented, I’ll certainly share what the cherries symbolize to me. They appear in abundance in the Garden piece. The way birds are handing them to couples, people are handing them to each other, and the fact that cherries are even flying in the air to symbolize the abundance of life, renewal, and an excellent manifestation of Earthly pleasures (suitbale for family viewing). They symbolize the life that can spring forth from the ground, God’s gift to humanity, tart sweetness for the picking.
Or maybe Bosch just liked red. 
The garden of earthly delights as taken from this site: http://artchive.com/ftp_site.htm
This is the last time i am helping you with your homework
First, this is not homework, (just extra credit). Second, the one (1) cherry I am referring to is the cherry between the legs of the person upside down in the water in the painting The Garden of Earthly delights. There is a bird-like creature coming out of it and another standing on it. I have looked at many websites and I am doing other research now to find out this answer. My professor said he has done extensive research and still doesn’t know the answer.
Thanks for your input!
Tina
I’m a BIG fan of Hieronymous Bosch, and I like TGOED. I wrote a private essay about the symbolism a while back.
The first rule is not to believe what anybody tells you about the symbolism. When it comes to interpreting Bosch, and especially TGOED, everyone seems to have their own ideological axe to grind. So look at all such explanations critically.
Important Point: We DON’T know what Bosch even called this painting! The earliest reference to it calls it “The Strawberry Plant”. “The Garden of Earthly Delights” is a much later name, and seems to have become the standard name. I’ve got one book that calls this “The Sinful Descendants of Adam” (despite the fact that nobody actually seems to be sinning in the entral panel). Wilhelm Fraenger got an undue amount of publicity fifty years or so back by calling it “The Millenium”. He thought it represented the “free love” acts of a heretical sect, to which he felt Bosch belonged. A lot of people think Fraenger is a nut.
The best explanation I’ve heard is that the various fruits (strawberry and cherry included) are associated with sex and sexual indulgence (just look where that cherry IS, after all.) Whether this was viewed by Bosch as a Good thing or a Bad thing isn’t clear, I maintain.
The interpretation of the elements of this painting is not a simle or straightforward task. I note that you can make out punishments for at least four of the seven cardinal sins in the right-hand “Hell” panel (Near the Bird in the Throne. Some [people think that’s Satan. I’m not one of them.). But you don’t see those sins being committed in the central panel. So what does it all mean? I don’t know, ut that central panel is, indeed, brimming with sexual imagery (look at the men on the animals in the circular “race” around the Pool of Women in the center – some of the anmal heads look as if they’re subbing for penises.) There are fruits balanced everywhere, and someone having flowers shoved u his rectum. I’m still not sure what it means, butI haven’t seen a coherent and believable explanation anywhere.
>> cherry I am referring to is the cherry between the legs of the person
Oh, brings back such good memories of my first girlfriend…
Yeah! i love those cherries!
I read an article a few years ago in the Smithsonian magazine about Bosch’s work, and it had a glossary showing what different things meant, some of which was supposed to be a standard that many artists used in his time frame. As an example, a funnel represented foolishness.
…when their about to slice into a heap of writhing unfortunates?
It’s ben argued that the “B” is for “Bosch”, although it might be “M” for “Mundi” (= world). A lot of other paintings of the period show a knife with a circle + Cross, the symbol of the world. This is located where the manufacturer’s mark normally is.
This is a related note to Bosch, since there are evidently some experts here.
When a painting is displayed as being from the “Workshop of Heironymous Bosch”, what exactly does that tell us about who painted it? My understanding of course is that it is not done by Bosch per se, but by a student of his?
The painting in question is a version of the “Temptation of Saint Anthony” displayed at the Nelson-Atkins Museaum in Kansas City. It gives no other reference than being from “The Workshop”, and dies NOT appear in a book I have which claims to be the “Complete” works of him.
BTW - I’m a huge Bosch fan as well!
Let’s see…
Red = sexual energy, life giving, cleansing, force, desire, mercury
Circle = sun, fertility, mother,
I think all of these fit with the apperances of the cherry or apple thorughout the picture. I think the dominant theme is that of sexual energy.
