The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch

The Garden of Earthly Delights (or The Millennium) is a triptych painted by Hieronymus Bosch (c. 1450–1516). The painting has been housed in the Museo del Prado in Madrid since 1939. Dating between 1503 and 1504, when Bosch was about 50 years old, it is his best-known and most ambitious work.

The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch

The triptych is painted in oil and comprises a square middle panel flanked by two rectangular wings that can close over the centre as shutters. The three scenes of the triptych are probably intended to be read chronologically from left to right.

The left panel depicts God presenting to Adam the newly created Eve:

The Garden of Earthly Delights (left panel)

The central panel is a broad panorama of sexually engaged nude figures, fantastical animals, oversized fruit and hybrid stone formations:

The Garden of Earthly Delights (centre panel)

The right panel is a hellscape and portrays the torments of damnation:

The Garden of Earthly Delights (right panel)

Art historians and critics frequently interpret the painting as a didactic warning on the perils of life’s temptations. However the intricacy of its symbolism, particularly that of the central panel, has led to a wide range of scholarly interpretations over the centuries. 20th and 21st-century art historians are divided as to whether the triptych’s central panel is a moral warning or a panorama of paradise lost.

www.rjdent.com

The Quantum Physicist’s Revenge by R J Dent

The quantum physicist was ecstatic.

          He took a jubilant eye away from the microscope, a jubilant step back from his workbench, then turned and jubilantly walked towards the door of his laboratory, in his haste very nearly knocking over a whole assortment of delicate scientific apparatus that had been arranged around the room.

          ‘Eureka,’ he said under his breath. ‘Eureka!’

          He repeated this word several times, and then stopped saying it when he realized that it wasn’t a dramatic enough word for his purpose. Eureka might have been good enough for a naked Archimedes, but times had changed, science had moved on, and the quantum physicist had discovered something with implications that would prove to have far more impact on the human race than the Hydrostatic Law. And he didn’t need to run naked through the streets to make his point. His discovery would make itself apparent to everyone very soon.

          Having reminded himself of this fact, the young quantum physicist walked quickly out of his laboratory and along the corridor to the Chief Science Officer’s office, desperately trying to think of something pithy, witty, all-encompassing and dramatic with which to announce his discovery. 

Upon reaching the office, he knocked and entered, not bothering – such was his eagerness to impart the news – to wait for the usual, terse bark of ‘Enter!’

          The Chief Science Officer looked up from behind his desk, angry and surprised. He simply wasn’t used to any of his staff simply barging into his office – although due to this just happening, he was able to deduce that the situation justified it, which meant – in short – that one of his staff had discovered something relevant, perhaps even important.

          ‘Yes?’ the Chief Science Officer demanded, with just the right amounts of sternness and understanding combined in his tone of voice. Read more…

The Quantum Physicist’s Revenge was written in February 2009. It was first published in Writer’s Muse, in 2010. This is a revised version of The Quantum Physicist’s Revenge.

The Quantum Physicist’s Revenge

Copyright © R J Dent (2009 & 2015)

Follow R J Dent’s work on:

website: http://www.rjdent.com/

amazon: http://www.amazon.co.uk/R.-J.-Dent/e/B0034Q3RD4

blog: https://rjdent.wordpress.com/

twitter: https://twitter.com/RJDent

facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rjdentwriter

youtube:  https://www.youtube.com/user/rjdent69

 

 

Nea Kameni

Nea Kameni is a small uninhabited Greek island of volcanic origin located within the flooded caldera of Santorini. Nea Kameni (New Burnt) and the neighbouring small island Palea Kameni (Old Burnt) have been formed over the past two millennia by repeated eruptions of dacite lava and ash. Major eruptions over the past 300 years took place in 1707-1712, 1866-1870, 1925-1928, and 1939-1941. The last small eruption happened in 1950, and involved lava dome extrusion.

Nea Kameni is nearly round and has a diameter of approximately 2 kilometers and an area of 3.4 square km. Nea Kameni is monitored closely by scientists from the Institute for the Study and Monitoring of the Santorini Volcano (ISMOSAV), and is a protected scientific site.

The nearly barren island is visited daily by dozens of tourist boats throughout the summer. The visitors take a well maintained gravel path to the 130-meter-high volcanic crater, from which wisps of a sulfurous steam rise, transforming the environment in places into a wasteland.

Recent archaeological findings, along with connected factual findings on the Island of Crete, have led some to propose that the island of Santorini may be the fabled Lost City of Atlantis. As described by Plato in his writing, an advanced trading civilization lived on this island. The area that now surrounds this island as water was once all land.

The civilization was literally destroyed overnight. Archaeological findings indicate that this culture had trade with the Egyptians, mainland Europe, and the Middle East. They had running water in individual homes, complete with baths and rudimentary but functional toilets, a full thousand years before Romans.

The island is arid but there is a carpet of red grassy succulents on the thin soil in summer.

www.rjdent.com

Zdzisław Beksiński

Zdzisław Beksiński

He is best known now as a fantasy artist.

Beksiński executed his paintings and drawings either in what he called a ‘Baroque’ or a ‘Gothic’ manner.

Zdzisław Beksiński’s first artistic style was dominated by representation.

The best-known examples of this style come from his ‘fantastic realism’ period.

This was when he painted disturbing images of a surrealistic, post-apocalyptic environment.

Beksiński’s  style is abstract, being dominated by form, as is typified by his later paintings.

Zdzisław Beksiński was murdered in 2005.

www.rjdent.com

Paul Godden (6fish)

Paul Godden (6fish) is an abstract expressionist painter whose work I admire greatly.

Paul Godden

Here is one of his most recent paintings:

Untitled by Paul Godden

He shows work at festivals each year, has café shows throughout the year and takes part in open exhibitions throughout the UK.

Here is another of his paintings:

Untitled by Paul Godden

He describes his art as ‘formal abstract expressionism’. He tends to work in series of paintings and over the course of a series develops a language within the paintings that slowly increases the degree of expression within the works.

Here is another of his paintings:

Broken Raison D'etre? by Paul Godden

This painting is the result of a process of deconstruction and reconstruction using a formal but abstract approach.

Here’s another one of his paintings:

Emergency Temporal Shift by Paul Godden

This painting is from a series of paintings referred to as the Chimene series, a series of mandalas meditating on the themes of love and loss.

And here’s an early painting that I like:

After11205

This painting is from a series of paintings which explored themes such as balance, geometry, patterns, symbolism and natural forms.

Paul Godden has been painting all his life.

He has painted some truly wonderful paintings, of which I’ve only been able to show a few favourites. Here’s a link to his blog so that you can see more of his amazing work:

http://paulgodden.blogspot.com/

I hope you enjoy his art as much as I do.

www.rjdent.com