I recently finished Tempting Fruit, a fresh new oil painting in my Cravings series exploring food obsession. It features returning characters Pink Pear and the Jelly Doughnuts, as well as an art history guest appearance by a couple (or pair) from the right hand side of the central panel of Bosch’s masterpiece The Garden of Earthly Delights (c.1515) (below).
By <a href=”https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/en:Hieronymus_Bosch” class=”extiw” title=”w:en:Hieronymus Bosch”><span title=”Dutch painter (c.1450-1516)”>Hieronymus Bosch</span></a> – <a rel=”nofollow” class=”external free” href=”http://boschproject.org/dzi/00MCPVIS.dzi”>http://boschproject.org/dzi/00MCPVIS.dzi</a> (downloaded with <a rel=”nofollow” class=”external text” href=”https://lovasoa.github.io/dezoomify-rs/”>dezoomify-rs</a>), Public Domain, Link
The inspiration for bringing Bosch into the picture began with the viridian green background in the early stages of the painting, along with the way the towel seemed to be leading the pear into the temptation of engaging with the cupcake. I really felt the desire to add a garden element to this background, and what better garden to explore in the theme of temptation than that of Bosch’s mythological garden as he sermonizes on the dangers of indulging in earthly delights. Originally I had added a third figure, but later decided to paint him out as extraneous to the main argument.
One painting leads to another, so currently I am working on a new set of paintings exploring the cupcake with peeled wrapper as a character with art historical reference to another famous garden painting, Fragonard’s The Swing (1767).
Also in the planning phase are a series of ten large scale Bosch inspired still life paintings. If you know of a venue or organization that would be interested in working with me to get these made or have them shown, I’d love to hear from you.