Some of the bizarre details in: The Garden of Earthly Delights (1490-1510), Hieronymus Bosch. Oil-on-wood triptych, 220 x 389 cm, Museo del Prado.
The source/meaning of many of the beings and images portrayed by Bosch are rather obscure and rarely seen in the paintings of his contemporaries. Many believe that Bosch was a reclusive madman who conceived of such beings himself, while others, including myself, are of the opinion that Bosch merely applied to painting figures that for the age were common-place in other media, but not painting, and that we have lost most of the sources which might have inspired Bosch’s beings (The study of demonology), although there might be a few that we are aware of. One such supposed inspiration was the St. John’s Cathedral in ‘s-Hertogenbosch, Bosch’s home town (and after which he took his name), specifically the gargoyles and figures adorning its buttresses. Something else that Bosch might have drawn inspiration from is marginalia from manuscripts-small doodles done on the margins of pages, as such.