I studied the details of the Van Eyck's Last Judgement and included a short interpretation in the booklet. I am also posting it on this blog as part of meditations for Lent.
The images were painted in oil on wood and then transferred onto canvas for reasons as yet undiscovered. Each panel measures 56.5 cm × 19.7 cm (22.25 in. × 7.75 in.).
The modest dimensions indicate it may have been intended for private devotion.
For those readers who would like to view the image in high definition with an option to zoom in, please use the following link to the Met Museum:
Commentary
Below is the Last Judgement panel cropped from the original and enlarged:
The composition may be divided horizontally into three registers which will be considered in turn:
1) Christ seated as Judge in Heaven, with His mother Mary and St. John the Baptist.
2) Earth, including the dry land and the oceans; St. Michael the Archangel links the upper and middle registers.
3) Hell, where the unrepentant damned are depicted under the pseudo-protective wings of a grimly grinning Death.
The upper register of the image is dominated by Our Lord, who is seated in judgement. His calm and serious gaze looks out towards the viewer, probing and penetrating deeply into our hearts. Beneath a crimson cappa, His body shows His five wounds, those of His hands and feet caused by the nails, and the wound caused by the lance in His right side; but in His risen body, these wounds give out golden rays of salvific light. The instruments of His Passion are held up by Angels. Two support the Cross He bore and on which he hung for three hours. One of these Angels appears to be wearing priestly vestments: alb, amice, chasuble and maniple – linking the Crucifixion to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Others bear the lance, the Crown of Thorns, the sponge soaked in vinegar and something which may be the scourge or the three massive nails used to fix Our Saviour to His Cross.
Two groups of four Angels are sounding the trumpet:
The mighty trumpet's wondrous tone
shall rend each tomb's sepulchral stone
and summon all before the Throne.
[Dies irae, stanza 3]
Three of the figures are much larger than the rest, Christ, His Blessed Mother and St. John the Baptist (on Christ’s left).
Mary is shown at her Son’s right hand side. Her halo recalls that she is “Blessed,” as addressed by Gabriel and Elizabeth but also as foretold in the Magnificat.[1] She is wearing a blue robe and cloak; her hair is loose, revealing her status as semper virginis (ever Virgin). A particularly touching detail depicts figures have sought shelter under the cloak of their Blessed Mother; two of them have their arms raised in supplication, perhaps recalling the words of the Memorare:
REMEMBER, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who fled to thy protection, implored thy help, or sought thy intercession was left unaided.
Her gentle yet serious gaze focuses on her Son, whilst her right hand is near her Immaculate Heart and her left hand is raised in supplication as she seeks to intercede on behalf of her children.
[1] For behold from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed. ecce enim ex hoc beatam me dicent omnes generationes. [Luke i 48]
The figure on Christ’s left is St. John the Baptist. We may recall his presence in his mother’s womb at the time of the Visitation, when the sound of Mary’s greeting and the presence of Christ caused him to leap for joy in his own mother’s womb. Christ was later to say of him:
"Amen I say to you, there hath not risen among them that are born of women a greater than John the Baptist."[2]
John preached about the coming judgement in unambiguous language, saying, for instance:
"For now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that doth not yield good fruit, shall be cut down, and cast into the fire."[3]
This fire is depicted in the middle register of Van Eyck’s painting.
Christ, His mother Mary and St. John the Baptist are the only persons whose birthday is celebrated in the liturgical calendar. All three were born free from any stain of sin.
[2] Amen dico vobis, non surrexit inter natos mulierum major Joanne Baptista. [Matth. xi 11]
[3] Matth. iii 10.
The lower sections of this upper register are peopled with a selection of men and women. In pride of place are the twelve figures in white, seated on benches, reminiscent of stalls found in the choir of larger churches. These are the Apostles, to whom Jesus said:
"Amen, I say to you, that you, who have followed me, in the regeneration, when the Son of man shall sit on the seat of his majesty, you also shall sit on twelve seats judging the twelve tribes of Israel." [Matth xix 28]
St. Peter, sitting to the right and furthest from the viewer, is identifiable from the keys he is holding.[4]
The linear perspective of the two rows of Apostles draws the eye towards a group of women who, from their loose flowing hair, would seem to be virgins, chanting with open books.
Other figures in the foreground and to the sides include a cardinal, several bishops and tonsured monks or brothers,various classes of the laity, and two crowned figures.
Angels manage the crowds and one of them points up towards Christ, over whose garments is written (twice) in letters of gold:
Venite benedicti Patris mei
Come, ye blessed of my Father[5]
[4] Vide Matth. xvi 16.
[5] Then shall the king say to them that shall be on his right hand: Come, ye blessed of my Father, possess you the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. Tunc dicet rex his qui a dextris ejus erunt : Venite benedicti Patris mei, possidete paratum vobis regnum a constitutione mundi :[Matth xxv 34]
The middle register is quite narrow and shows St. Michael the Archangel in armour with a sword and shield. His princely circlet bears a Cross and he gazes down towards the unrepentant who have condemned themselves to the torments of Hell.
After Christ, His Mother and the Baptist, St. Michael is the dominant figure in the image, standing at the frontier between the celestial world of God’s heavenly kingdom and the grim underworld of Gehenna.
The landscape portrayed features in the background a scene of devastation by fire. The Dies Irae opens with a reference to this fire:
A day of wrath,that day
will reduce the world to ashes.
St. Peter refers quite explicitly to this destruction:
"But the heavens and the earth which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of the ungodly men.
Cæli autem, qui nunc sunt, et terra eodem verbo repositi sunt, igni reservati in diem judicii, et perditionis impiorum hominum." [II Pet.iii 7]
“The world will be destroyed by fire — it will be judged by fire. Over and over again the Church repeats this truth in her liturgical prayers: Christus venturus est iudicare vivos et mortuos, et sæculum per ignem. [Christ will come to judge the living and the dead and the world, by fire.] Fire is, therefore, the means that will be employed by God to judge, punish and renew all things at the consummation of the world.” [Dies Iræ : The Sequence of the Mass for the Dead by Rev. N Gihr (1927, the B. Herder Book Co.), p33]
In the foreground, the earth and the sea are giving up the dead:
And the sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and hell gave up their dead that were in them; and they were judged every one according to their works. [Apoc. xx 13]
This a vivid image which features in the third stanza of Dies Irae:
The mighty trumpet's wondrous tone
shall rend each tomb's sepulchral stone
and summon all before the Throne.
St. Michael’s gaze draws our view down to the scarcely conceivable horrors of an underworld Hell. The unseeing orbits of Death’s skull look boldly towards the eyes of the viewer in an infernal aping of the Saviour’s serious but tender gaze above. Four arrows shoot downwards from St Michael like celestial thunderbolts, recalling the image in the prayer to Holy Michael, the Archangel:
"Do thou, O prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God thrust into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world for the ruin of souls. Amen."
Two of the thunderbolts bear the words of the Judge:
"Ite vos maledicti in ignem æternum."[6]
Death’s twisted posture and his bat-like wings are a grotesque mimicry of the loving protection as found in texts such as:
"In thy tabernacle I shall dwell for ever: I shall be protected under the covert of thy wings."
[Psalms LX:5]
"Jerusalem, Jerusalem, that killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent to thee, how often would I have gathered thy children as the bird doth her brood under her wings, and thou wouldest not?"
[Luke xiii:34]
Dark letters on the foreside of Death’s wings spell out:
CHAOS MAGNVM and VMBRA MORTIS
Great chaos and Shadow of Death
The seething cauldron of tumbling, writhing figures includes men and women of all classes. These are the unrepentant sinners who have received their just reward in this never-ending nightmare, tormented by demons in the perverted, mis-shapen forms of animals never seen in nature. Among their number may be found tonsured prelates, a cardinal, three bishops, a nun, as well countless members of the laity.
Miserere nobis,Domine!
Confutatis maledictis,
flammis acribus addictis.
voca me cum benedictis.
Thou dost the curséd all confound,
and with undying flames surround:
with heaven's Bless'd may I be found!
[Dies irae,stanza 16]
Totus tuus ego sum
Et omnia mea tua sunt;
Tecum semper tutus sum:
Ad Jesum per Mariam
