|
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 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 high by wide. The diptych was probably commissioned for personal and 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 azure 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 Hubert〔Ridderbos 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, 86〕〔Borchert, 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 spacial 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〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Crucifixion and Last Judgement diptych」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|