page_title: Crucifixion and Last Judgement diptych
section_title: Last Judgement panel
hierarchical_section_title: Crucifixion and Last Judgement diptych / The diptych / Last Judgement panel
caption_attribution_description: English: Crop of Crucifixion and Last Judgement diptych
context_page_description: The Crucifixion and Last Judgement diptych consists of two small painted panels attributed to the Early Netherlandish artist Jan van Eyck, with areas finished by unidentified followers or members of his workshop. This diptych is one of the early Northern Renaissance oil on panel masterpieces, renowned for its unusually complex and highly detailed iconography, and for the technical skill evident in its completion. It was executed in a miniature format; the panels are just 56.5 cm high by 19.7 cm wide. The diptych was probably commissioned for private devotion.
  The left-hand wing depicts the Crucifixion. It shows Christ's followers grieving in the foreground, soldiers and spectators milling about in the mid-ground and a portrayal of three crucified bodies in the upper-ground. The scene is framed against an expansive and foreboding sky with a view of Jerusalem in the distance. The right-hand wing portrays scenes associated with the Last Judgement: a hellscape at its base, the resurrected awaiting judgement in the centre-ground, and a representation of Christ in Majesty flanked by a Great Deësis of saints, apostles, clergy, virgins and nobility in the upper section.
context_section_description: The right hand wing, as with the Crucifixion wing, is divided horizontally into three areas. Here they represent, from top to bottom heaven, earth and hell. Heaven contains a traditional Great Deësis with clergy and laity; earth, in the mid-ground, is dominated by the figures of Archangel Michael and a personification of Death; while in the lower ground the damned fall into hell, where they are tortured and eaten by beasts. Describing the hell passage, art historian Bryson Burroughs writes that "the diabolical inventions of Bosch and Brueghel are children's boggy lands compared to the horrors of the hell [van Eyck] has imagined."
  Pächt compares the scene to a medieval bestiary, comprising a "whole fauna of zoomorphic fiends".  Van Eyck's hell is inhabited by demonic monsters whose only visible features are often "their glittering eyes and the white of their fangs".  The sinners fall head first into their torment, at the mercy of devils taking recognisable forms such as rats, snakes and pigs, as well as a bear and a donkey. Daringly, van Eyck shows kings and members of the clergy among those condemned to hell.
  The earth is represented by the narrow area between heaven and hell. The passage shows the resurrection of the dead as the fires of the last day rage. The dead rise from their graves to the left and from the stormy sea to the right. The Archangel Michael stands on death's shoulders, the largest figure in the painting, whose body and wings span the entire pictorial space. Michael wears jewel-studded golden armour and has curly blond hair and multicoloured wings similar to those seen in the donor panel of van Eyck's 1437 Dresden Triptych of the Virgin and Child. Michael appears, according to Smith, "like a giant on the earth, whose crust is revealed to be the wings of the skeletal figure of Death. The damned are excreted though Death's bowels into the dark slime of hell." The bat-like death figure, with skull extruding up to earth and skeletal arms and legs reaching down into hell, is the protagonist of the narrative according to Pächt, but death is vanquished by the slim and youthful looking archangel standing between the horrors of hell and the promise of heaven.
  The upper portion of the panel shows the second coming as recorded in Matthew 25:31: "But when the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory." Christ, who was naked, frail and almost lifeless in the Crucifixion panel, is now resurrected and triumphant in heaven. He is dressed in a long red mantle and is barefoot. His hands and feet are surrounded by circles of yellow light. The Holy Wounds are visible on his
  palms held open; the puncture mark left by Longinus' spear is visible on his side through the opening in his robe, as are the nail holes on his feet.
  Christ is seated at the centre of a large array of angels, saints and holy elders. According to Pächt, in this scene in heaven that "all is sweetness, gentleness and order." Mary and John the Baptist kneel in prayer to his immediate right and left. Both have halos and are rendered at a far larger scale than the surrounding figures, over whom they seem to tower. Mary holds her right hand at her breast, while her left is raised as if to ask for mercy for the smaller naked figures sheltered by her cloak, evoking the conventional pose of the Virgin of Mercy. A choir of virgins gather directly under Christ's feet. They face outwards towards the viewer and sing Christ's praise.
  Headed by Saint Peter, the Apostles are dressed in white robes and sit on two facing benches set below Christ and to the right and left of the choir of virgins. Two angels attend to the groups gathered at each side of the benches. A further two angels are positioned immediately above Christ. They hold his cross and are dressed in white amice and albs, with the right hand angel wearing an outer blue dalmatic vestment. They are flanked on either side by angels playing long wind instruments, probably trumpets. The two angels on either side of Christ bear the symbols of the cr
caption: Detail of the Christ in Majesty. This area is considered to have been painted more broadly and with less skill than the other sections of the panels, and is thus thought by some to have been painted by members of van Eyck's workshop.[38]
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