Paradise and Hell is the left and right panels of a minor diptych

Diptych

A diptych di "two" + ptychē "fold") is any object with two flat plates attached at a hinge. Devices of this form were quite popular in the ancient world, wax tablets being coated with wax on inner faces, for recording notes and for measuring time and direction.In Late Antiquity, ivory diptychs with...

 by Hieronymus Bosch based on The Haywain Triptych

The Haywain Triptych

Haywain is a triptych panel painting by Hieronymus Bosch in the Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain, painted after 1510. This dating is based on the dendrochronological research of the panels. The centre panel measures 140 by 100 cm, and the wings measure 147 by 66 cm. A second version is in El...

. The image is oil on panel and is 135 x 45 cm. It was painted c. 1510 and is currently housed in the Museo del Prado

Museo del Prado

The Museo del Prado is the main Spanish national art museum, located in central Madrid. It features one of the world's finest collections of European art, from the 12th century to the early 19th century, based on the former Spanish Royal Collection, and unquestionably the best single collection of...

, Madrid

Madrid

Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...

. Paradise is depicted darker than in the Haywain, which possibly represents the darkness of original sin

Original sin

Original sin is, according to a Christian theological doctrine, humanity's state of sin resulting from the Fall of Man. This condition has been characterized in many ways, ranging from something as insignificant as a slight deficiency, or a tendency toward sin yet without collective guilt, referred...

.

Description

The left panel depicts Creation and the Garden of Eden. It is loosely divided into sections, beginning at the top and ending at the bottom, while the right panel does not appear to follow any sequence of events. The left panel most likely corresponds with the Book of Genesis, and follows from the top, moving downward, and the right panel possibly corresponds with the Book of Revelation. At the top of the left panel, God

God

God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....

 sits enthroned in Heaven

Heaven

Heaven, the Heavens or Seven Heavens, is a common religious cosmological or metaphysical term for the physical or transcendent place from which heavenly beings originate, are enthroned or inhabit...

 while the world is created. Angels toss the Rebel Angels

Fallen angel

Fallen angel is a concept developed in Jewish mythology from interpretation of the Book of Enoch. The actual term fallen angel is not found in either the Hebrew Bible or the New Testament. Christians adopted the concept of fallen angels mainly based on their interpretations of the Book of...

 out of the Heaven. While the Rebel Angels are thrown out of Heaven, they turn to insects. Moving downward, in the next 'section', a scene is shown where God has created Eve

Eve (Bible)

Eve was, according to the creation of Abrahamic religions, the first woman created by God...

 and is introducing her to Adam. In the third 'section', the serpent

Serpent (Bible)

Serpent is the term used to translate a variety of words in the Hebrew bible, the most common being , , the generic word for "snake"....

 offers Adam and eve a fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil

Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil

In the Book of Genesis, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil or the tree of knowledge was a tree in the middle of the Garden of Eden. . God directly forbade Adam to eat the fruit of this tree...

, and Adam is reaching out to take it. At the bottom of the panel, an Angel

Angel

Angels are mythical beings often depicted as messengers of God in the Hebrew and Christian Bibles along with the Quran. The English word angel is derived from the Greek ἄγγελος, a translation of in the Hebrew Bible ; a similar term, ملائكة , is used in the Qur'an...

expels Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, thus marking the Fall of Man, and the two become ashamed of their nakedness. The right panel depicts the consequences of Adam and Eve's choice, in which a vision of hell is shown. A burning building can be seen in the background, and in the foreground, there appear to be several demons constructing a fortress or castle. To the lower left, a man is being directed towards a castle by two mutated animals. Just in front of the portcullis is a man riding a cow, being pierced by a sword or spear. At the bottom right, a man is running while being attacked by demonic creatures, while to the lower left a man is being devoured by a large human-legged fish.