Blogger Transcribes Sheet Music from Tiny Butt in Hieronymus Bosch Painting

by Paula Newton February 13, 2014

bosch_buttA few days ago, a Tumblr blogger named “Amelia” wrote about her experience of looking at the famous painting The Garden of Earthly Delights, by Hieronymus Bosch, when she and her friend discovered “music written upon the posterior of one of the many tortured denizens of the rightmost panel of the painting which is intended to represent Hell.” She decided to transcribe it into modern notation and post a piano snippet of the song, adding, “so yes this is LITERALLY the 600-years-old butt song from hell.” (Note to art historians with calculators: drop it. Yeah, it’s closer to a 500-year-old butt song.)

Another blogger, “wellmanicuredman,” saw the post and arranged it as a choral chant and posted that on his blog (scroll down a little bit). It is sometimes difficult to pick out the lyrics of a serious choral chant, so wellmanicuredman wrote them out, inviting his readers to sing along:

butt song from hell
this is the butt song from hell
we sing from our asses while burning in purgatory
the butt song from hell
the butt song from hell
butts

While trying to read the painting and interpretations of it is similar to the experience of navigating the Internet itself (and its cultural interpretations), it is doubtful that Bosch could have foreseen this art/music history project transpire through Tumblr. But he obviously had a very vivid and twisted imagination, so it is possible.

Hieronymus Bosch, The Garden of Earthly Delights, Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain.

Hieronymus Bosch, The Garden of Earthly Delights, Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain.

Detail of right panel. See it now?

Detail of right panel. See it now?

 

2 comments

2 comments

Sascha February 20, 2014 - 08:15

On the occasion of this discovery, I created a virtual 3D exhibition of Bosch’s most famous paintings. A museum would never be able to unite these valuable and fragile artworks all together within one single hall – everybody is invited to explore it from their laptops after installing a browser plugin. http://bit.ly/1cqwNW9

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Doug Harvey March 4, 2014 - 12:35

Mannlicher Carcano – Bosch Butt Music MEGAMIX http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8mW-fHyGJE

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