Art freak #2: The Garden of Earthly Delights, Hieronymus Bosch

The Garden of Earthly Delights Triptych, Hieronymus Bosch, 1490-1500. Museo del Prado, Madrid


I was 9 years old the first time I went to Madrid. I went with my sisters, my father and my grandmother — who were visiting us, a year after we had moved to Spain. To be honest, I don't remember much about the trip itself, apart from two things: the Warner Bros. amusement park and The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch at the Museo del Prado.

My sisters and I still laugh about our visit to the museum because, while I wandered around quietly taking in the paintings, they — Lola, who was 8, and Coco, who was 4 — got bored and wandered off. Which, I suppose, was perfectly normal at that age. I, on the other hand, was completely captivated. I remember spending what now feels like a very long time examining every little detail of that masterpiece. I loved that it was a triptych — I'd never seen one before — and the subject matter fascinated me. Open, it's quite a large piece by any measure (384.9 x 205.5 cm, to be precise); standing in front of it at 9 years old, at most 110 cm tall, it felt infinite. The chaos of the central panel and the monsters on the side depicting the Last Judgement had me absolutely hipnotized. I was completely taken with it. So much so that it remains my favourite work of art to this day.

Beyond the depth of the colours, the somehow harmonious chaos, and the artist's extraordinary imagination, there is one thing in particular that, for me, sets it apart from everything else — and it's the main reason I love it so much: I always find something new that I hadn't noticed before.

I think that's part of what drives me to do what I do. Or at least, it's the kind of design I aspire to: design that has layers. That, if you look closely enough, reveals something you hadn't seen or understood from a distance. I don't always manage it, of course, but it's the thought I carry with me whenever I'm working on something: that it shouldn't be flat. That there should be something more in there.