Of all the painters of allegory, Hieronymous Bosch stands out as certainly the finest and most original. For almost five hundred years his works have proved fascinating to scholars and lay observers alike. The wealth of strange and sometimes seemingly inconceivable beings and objects which confront one in viewing any of his works has elicited numerous theories on Bosch's objectives. Some have thought him to be a heretic, painting altars for some strange cult involving orgiastic rites. More likely, however, he was expressing symbolically the mood of the church and its prevailing philosophy of that time. Though the original meanings of the symbolism may be lost to us forever, Bosch's fantastic visions can be personally interpreted or not, as one chooses, without in any way detracting from the works' artistic merid. The close-up details pictured here, along with several views of his triptychs, help illustrate the amazing visions of this most unusual of the world's great painters.