Jan van Eyck
The Crucifixion; The Last Judgment
Netherlands (c. 1435-40)
Oil on canvas, transferred from wood; 56.5 x 19.7 cm.
These exquisite paintings, juxtaposing Christ’s sacrifice for the salvation of mankind with the Last Judgment, are by Jan van Eyck, the most celebrated painter of fifteenth-century Europe, and an assistant. The Crucifixion is presented as an eyewitness account set against a distant landscape, astonishing for its depth and subtlety of description. By contrast, the Last Judgment is organized hieratically in three tiers, with the scale of the figures manipulated to indicate their relative importance. The biblical texts on the original frames relate specifically to the scenes depicted, establishing a play between word and image that would have been admired by contemporaries.
-The Metropolitan Museum of Art
