Hieronymus Bosch, born about 1450 in the Spanish Netherlands, was a strikingly original artist. He expanded the subject matter of painting, which was dominated by religious themes, to include scenes of everyday secular life, what is called genre painting. More startling, his depictions of everyday life included a variety of unexpected figures, drunkards and charlatans, for example, engaged in eccentric behavior—as well as otherworldly figures, aliens, composed of parts of different animals, such as the head of a bird on the body of a frog. He painted nightmares full of devilries, fantasies, oddities and chaos. In short, he often created new species inhabiting new worlds.

The unreality of living in a COVID-19 world, an unprecedented experience that contradicts the reality we have known, is like living in a Bosch painting.