When art turns odd

Our podcast editor Ellie Cawthorne discusses a recent episode on the weirdest masterpieces in art history - and what they can tell us about the depth of human imagination

- By Ellie Cawthorne

Let's begin with an ice-skating birdmonster, a pig wearing a nun's habit, and a man playing a pipe with his backside. Because all of these figures appear in Hieronymus Bosch's hallucinatory The Garden of Earthly Delights (c1490-1500) - a Where's Wally-esque medieval masterpiece that seems a good place to start when talking about the weirdest art in history.

And that's what Edward Brooke-Hitching joined me on the podcast to do. "When looking at the work of artists such as Bosch, words like 'madness' and 'genius' almost become irrelevant," says Brooke-Hitching, whose book The Madman's Gallery delves into the most bizarre creations in art history.