The Crucifixion and Last Judgement diptych (or Diptych with Calvary and Last Judgement)Vermij et al., 362 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 oil-on-panel masterpieces of the Northern Renaissance, 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 high by 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. Portions of the work contain Greek, Latin and Hebrew inscriptions."The Crucifixion; The Last Judgment". Metropolitan Museum of Art. Retrieved 20 February 2012. The original gilt frames contain Biblical passages in Latin drawn from the books of Isaiah, Deuteronomy and Revelation. According to a date written in Russian on their reverse, the panels were transferred to canvas supports in 1867.
The earliest surviving mention of the work appears in 1841, when scholars believed the two panels were wings of a lost triptych. The Metropolitan Museum of Art acquired the diptych in 1933. At that time, the work was attributed to Jan's brother HubertRidderbos et al., 216 because key areas formally resembled pages of the Turin-Milan Hours, which were then believed to be of Hubert's hand. On the evidence of technique and the style of dress of the figures, the majority of scholars believe the panels are late works by Jan van Eyck, executed in the early 1430s and finished after his death. Other art historians hold that van Eyck painted the panels around the early 1420s and attribute the weaker passages to a younger van Eyck's relative inexperience.Borchert, 86Borchert, 89
Format and technique Along with Robert Campin and later Rogier van der Weyden, Van Eyck revolutionised the approach towards naturalism and realism in Northern European painting during the early to mid 15th century.Ridderbos et al., 378 He was the first to manipulate oils to give the close detailing that infused his figures with the high degree of realism and complexity of emotion seen in this diptych.Panofsky, 163 He coupled this with a mastery of glaze to create luminous surfaces with a deep perspective—most noticeable in the upper portion of the Crucifixion panel—which had not been achieved before.Viladesau, 70
In the 1420s and 1430s, when oil and panel painting were still in their infancy, vertical formats were often used for depictions of the Last Judgement, because the narrow framing particularly suited a hierarchical presentation of heaven, earth and hell. By contrast, depictions of the Crucifixion were usually presented in a horizontal format. To fit such expansive and highly detailed representations onto two equally small and narrow wings, van Eyck was forced to make a number of innovations, redesigning many elements of the Crucifixion panel to match the vertical and condensed presentation of the Judgement narrative.Smith, 144 The result is a panel with the crosses rising high into the sky, an unusually packed crowd scene in the mid-ground, and the moving spectacle of the mourners in the foreground, all rendered in a continuous slope from bottom to top in the style of medieval tapestries. Art historian Otto Pächt says it "is the whole world in one painting, an Orbis Pictus".
In the Crucifixion panel, van Eyck follows the early 14th-century tradition of presenting the biblical episodes using a narrative technique.Labuda, 14 According to art historian Jeffrey Chipps Smith, the episodes appear as "simultaneous, not sequential" events. Van Eyck condenses key episodes from the gospels into a single composition, each placed so as to draw the viewer's eye upward in a logical sequence. This device allowed van Eyck to create a greater illusion of depth with more complex and unusual spatial arrangements. In the Crucifixion panel, he uses different indicators to show the relative closeness of particular groupings of figures to Jesus. Given the size of the mourners in the foreground relative to the crucified figures, the soldiers and spectators gathered in the mid-ground are far larger than a strict adherence to perspective would allow. In the Last Judgement the damned are placed in hell in the lower mid-ground while the saints and angels are positioned higher in the upper foreground. Pächt writes of this panel that the scene is "assimilated into a single spatial cosmos", with the archangel acting as a divider in the pictorial space between heaven and hell.
Art historians are unsure as to whether the panels were meant to be a diptych or a triptych. They may have formed the outer wings of a triptych, with a since-lost panel representing the Adoration of the Magi at the centre, or, as the German art historian J.D. Passavant speculated in 1841, the lost centre panel may have been a Nativity. It is now thought unlikely that a lost panel could be the postulated original companion to the outer wings; such a coupling would have been very odd to painters of the 1420s and 1430s. It has also been proposed that a central piece was added later, or as Albert Châtelet writes, the central panel may have been stolen.Châtelet, 74 Art historian Erwin Panofsky believed the Crucifixion and Last Judgement panels were intended as a diptych. He argued that it would have been unusual for mere outer wings to have been given the "sumptuous treatment" afforded these two panels.Panofsky, 454 This approach is reminiscent of the medieval reliquaries. Others have observed that triptychs were usually much larger works intended for public display, and they tended towards gilded and heavily inscribed frames; typically only the central panel would have been as lavishly decorated as these panels. Contemporary diptychs, in contrast, were usually produced for private devotion and were typically ungilded. There is no documentary evidence for an original central panel, however, and technical examination suggests the two works were intended as wings of a diptych, then an emerging format.Ridderbos et al., 78 Pächt believes there is not enough evidence to determine whether a third panel existed.Pächt, 190–191
The diptych is notable for the first known naturalistic depiction of the Moon's features. It had previously been typical to show the Moon as a blank disk or crescent, or with a human face. Here, the waning gibbous Moon is shown as it would appear in the mid-morning western sky in Judea, including major features such as the Mare Imbrium and the Oceanus Procellarum.
The diptych
Crucifixion panel The Crucifixion panel comprises three horizontal planes, each representing different moments from the Passion. The upper third shows the crucifixion before a view of Jerusalem; the lower two thirds detail the crowds and Jesus' followers at Golgotha (Place of the Skull).Labuda, 9 Located outside the city walls amongst rock tombs and gardens, in the first century Golgotha was Jerusalem's place of execution,Sebag Montefiore, 127–128 and the visible patches of hill highlight the area's "stony, forbidding, and lifeless" nature. The atmosphere of bleakness is reinforced by the random figures in the upper ground that scramble for a better view. The gospels tell of Jesus' followers and relatives, as well as his prosecutors and assorted spectators, attending the crucifixion at Golgotha. In van Eyck's panel the former are represented in the foreground, while the latter, including High Priests and Temple Elders, are shown in the mid-ground.Labuda, 10
The centre foreground shows a group of five mourners, with three other figures set to the right and left. In the center group, John the Evangelist supports the Virgin Mary, surrounded by three women. Mary's dramatic swoon in grief pushes her forward in the pictorial space, and according to Smith, places her "closest to the viewer's presumed position". Dressed in an enveloping blue robe that hides most of her face, she collapses and is caught by John, who supports her by her arms. Mary Magdalene kneels to the right, dressed in a white-trimmed green robe and red sleeves. Raising her arms aloft, she clenches her fingers in a distraught, agonised manner.Ainsworth, 16 She is the only figure from this group shown to look directly at Christ and serves as one of the key painterly devices to direct the viewer's gaze upwards towards the crosses.Labuda, 12 The fourth and fifth mourners have been identified as prophesying sibyls, and stand to the far left and right of the centre group. The sibyl to the left faces the cross with her back to the viewer while the turbaned mourner on the right faces the group and is either the Erythraean or the Cumaean sibyl, both of whom are attributed in Christian tradition with warning the occupying Romans of the cult of redemption that would develop around Christ's death and resurrection. She has an almost indifferent expression that has been interpreted both as satisfaction at seeing her prophesies realised, and as compassionate contemplation of the other women's grief.Weale, 146
The mid-ground shows a crowd scene above the group of mourners, separated by two soldiers who stand between the two groupings. The mourners from the foreground are reflected in the shield carried on the hip of the lance-bearing Roman soldier who leans on the man to his right wearing a red turban. Smith believes this serves to highlight the mourners' emotional and physical separation from the assorted figures gathered in the mid-ground.Smith, 146 Art historian Adam Labuda sees these two figures, positioned full-length between the chief mourners and mid-ground spectators, as a pictorial device that along with the Magdalene's upward gaze draws viewers' eyes upwards through the panel's dramatic sequence.Labuda, 13
Van Eyck's depiction lays particular emphasis on the brutishness and indifference of the crowd witnessing Christ's suffering.Burroughs, 192 They comprise a mixture of Roman legionaries, judges and various hangers-on arriving to witness the spectacle. A number are dressed in rich, brightly coloured clothes, a mixture of oriental and northern European styles, while several are mounted on horseback. Some openly jeer and taunt the condemned, others gape stupefied at "just another" execution, while others talk amongst themselves. The exception is the armoured centurion, seated on a white horse at the extreme right edge of the panel, who looks up at Christ, arms spread wide, head thrown back, at "the very moment of his illumination" in recognition of Christ's divinity. The horsemen closely resemble both the Soldiers of Christ and Righteous Judges from the lower inner panels of van Eyck's c. 1432 Ghent Altarpiece. Art historian Till-Holger Borchert observes that these figures are given "greater dynamism by being seen in rear rather than profile view", and that this vantage point draws the observer's eye upwards towards the mid-ground and the crucifixion.