Given the below context: The charting and conquest of this new world made real regions previously only idealised in the imagination of artists and poets. At the same time, the certainty of the old biblical paradise began to slip from the grasp of thinkers into the realms of mythology. In response, treatment of the Paradise in literature, poetry and art shifted towards a self-consciously fictional Utopian representation, as exemplified by the writings of Thomas More (14781535).Albrecht Durer was an avid student of exotic animals, and drew many sketches based on his visits to European zoos. Durer visited 's-Hertogenbosch during Bosch's lifetime, and it is likely the two artists met, and that Bosch drew inspiration from the German's work.Attempts to find sources for the work in literature from the period have not been successful. Art historian Erwin Panofsky wrote in 1953 that, "In spite of all the ingenious, erudite and in part extremely useful research devoted to the task of "decoding Jerome Bosch", I cannot help feeling that the real secret of his magnificent nightmares and daydreams has still to be disclosed. We have bored a few holes through the door of the locked room; but somehow we do not seem to have discovered the key." The humanist Desiderius Erasmus has been suggested as a possible influence; the writer lived in 's-Hertogenbosch in the 1480s, and it is likely he knew Bosch. Glum remarked on the triptych's similarity of tone with Erasmus's view that theologians "explain (to suit themselves) the most difficult mysteries ... is it a possible proposition: God the Father hates the Son? Could God have assumed the form of a woman, a devil, an ass, a gourd, a stone?" Guess a valid title for it!
The Garden of Earthly Delights