At first glance, this image looks like a photo of a girl with a massive back tattoo featuring the iconic 15th-century painting “The Garden of Earthly Delights”.

But look again. The piece is actually a painting within a painting! 

This fascinating tribute to Hieronymus Bosch's epic masterpiece is the work of Polish painter Agnieszka Nienartowicz. After releasing the finished piece online, it went viral.

And for good reason! Her work is a prime example of gorgeous realism and the concept itself is fascinating. By combining concepts of old and new, she sheds new light on the work.

I love this painting, it is so strange, weird and beautiful at the same time.

Humans are full of contrasts and contradictions, they want to do good and instead they do evil.

“Humans are full of contrasts and contradictions, they want to do good and instead they do evil,”Nienartowicz says. “I was thinking about human nature, about sin and the will of evil which are inscribed in our being, like written inside us. And then I connected it with the Bosch's triptych, which speaks of human nature. I love this painting, it is so strange, weird and beautiful at the same time.”

Nienartowicz graduated from Gdańsk Academy of Fine Arts only two years ago, and already, the world is taken with her work.

For the artist, mixing opposing elements was a natural progression of her work.

“I treat each element like any other item, but on the other hand, the historical elements bring a story and an emotional load with them," she says. "At the same time, by including them in my paintings, I give them the new context, meaning, and a new life. Maybe it is also a kind of a tribute to the Old Masters?”

Find more of her incredible work online here.

Via My Modern Met & Agnieszka Nienartowicz