The triptychs of Hieronymus Bosch

The sixteenth-century painter Hieronymus Bosch, though steeped in the traditions and conventions of the Netherlandish triptych, inverted and subverted that format. As is particularly manifest in three of his most famous triptychs (the Prado Epiphany, Temptation of Saint Anthony, and Garden of Earthly Delights), Bosch supplanted traditional religious iconography with more secular themes, he increased the importance of the exteriors, thereby rejecting the standard hierarchical structure, and he unified the various panels to an unprecedented degree, thus departing from the additive conception of the triptych. Bosch's innovations, far from representing the dissolution of the triptych, served to inject new life and expand the possibilities of this traditional type.