The Monkey and the Inkpot

For the second week in a row, my post on inspiration is about visual art. I've often wished I was more accomplished and experienced in visual art (but you just couldn't take art classes in my high school if you were doing the intense college prep route that seemed what was expected of me), so maybe enjoying these artists is my way to make up for that.

Whatever the case, I've enjoyed Hieronymus Bosch's paintings ever since I saw The Garden of Earthly Delights in El Prado in Madrid. It's easy to find lots of pictures of his wild paintings online, but here's one little detail of that triptych:

Just one small corner of the center painting, yet so busy and full of detail--I love that. So, I found a book all about Bosch, his paintings, his influences, the culture of the day. It's great stuff. When I chose to rename my surreal tree-city that's the setting for a number of stories, I picked "Boskrea" in part to evoke his name. I happen to be doing a major reworking of what I would like to be a mosaic novel set there (it needs a ton of work yet, though...). Reading through this book and looking at the details of many of his works, not just the most famous one, has given me a lot of ideas already for what direction to take my revisions. Much needed direction, I might add.