like it or not

Moscow officials don't care how famous a painter Hieronymus Bosch is. No anal play in advertisements, the city insists

5:27 pm, March 16, 2016

Moscow city officials have ordered the takedown of advertisements featuring fragments of a picture by the 15th century Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch, arguing that the artwork is “morally unacceptable.”

Moscow's ARTPLAY Design Center is opening a new exhibit to Bosch on March 19. According the radio station Govorit Moskva, ARTPLAY's advertisements featuring Bosch's work started being dismantled without any warning earlier this week.

City officials took offense to a fragment from Bosch's “The Garden of Earthly Delights,” which features Biblical scenes and spiritual concepts ranging from Creation, to playful nudity, to Hell. It's the playful nudity—particularly the depiction of a man with a bouquet of flowers inserted into his rectum—that turned Moscow officials against the posters.

Moscow's government versus Bosch. On March 14, [officials] dismantled an outdoor advertisement featuring part of Bosch's “The Garden of Earthly Delights,” which symbolizes courtly love. So far there's been no explanation for the decision.

According to ARTPLAY's website, the Bosch exhibit is listed as inappropriate for children under the age of six.