Whether the Pope's Latin Joannen praeclarum Brugiensem (or the more vulgar Johannes Gallicus), the Italianate Giovanni da Bruggia, or Johannes de Eyck in his own florid, notarial script, "Jan van Eyck"--as we, the English have dubbed him--was indeed the greatest artist of the International Gothic style in Flanders. Furthermore, for art historians such as Karel van Mander, "the record of northern masters begins with Jan."1 Indeed, it was van Eyck's penchant for particulars that helped to establish that innately Flemish strain of realism that's extant in so much of the 15th-century art above the Alps. His meticulous attention to detail, evident throughout his oeuvre, consistently manifested itself no matter the message. Nevertheless, as all great artists during this period were so obliged, Jan van Eyck tempered his realist proclivities with a slavish devotion to Roman Catholic iconography. One such work, his Crucifixion and Last Judgment, duly exhibits the aforementioned concoction of Flemish particularism and papal conviction in a decidedly macabre, yet morally urgent manner.
Amid the ensuing controversy over the actual date of execution, all but the most contrarian scholars agree that the Crucifixion and Last Judgment was completed in the earlier portion of van Eyck's career. Valentin Denis offers the most convincing argument by citing the "uphill, rather indefinite perspective" of the diptych as evidence of the executor's "young and artistically undeveloped" style.2 Incidentally, Denis assigns the piece its earliest born-on--in 1424. Assuming that van Eyck was born in the year 1385, the oldest thus far ascribed, he would have finished the Crucifixion and Last Judgment at the age of 39. However, surviving documents from van Eyck's tenure at The Hague--in service to John of Bavaria, Count of Holland, the first aristocrat to secure the young Fleming (well before his most enlightened patron Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy)--record the presence of a "Master Jan" between the years 1420 and 1422.3 If indeed the 1439 date of birth is accurate, Jan van Eyck would have been awarded his mastership no later than the age of 37. Thus, the likelihood that a master painter would exhibit such fundamental flaws in representation more than two years hence his guilding, seems rather unlikely. Nonetheless, other, presumably later works by van Eyck such as his Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata and even the famous Arnolfini Wedding Portrait not only reveal an ignorance or disregard of one-point perspective, but they, too, offend basic optical sins no master artisan would dare deign. This issue of craftsmanship certainly lends credence to James Snyder's otherwise too-late attribution span of 1438-1440.4
The only aspect regarding the Crucifixion and Last Judgment more confusing and convoluted further than its date of execution is the very identity of the executor, himself. Artists from Jan van Eyck, to Hubrecht van Eyck (Jan's elder brother, who may not have even existed some contend), to Jan's celebrated pupil Petrus Christus, to the anonymous "Master of the Turin Book of Hours:" All have been credited with painting the diptych by such reliable scholars like M.J. Friedlander, H.B. Wehle, Cavalcaselle and L. Baldass, respectively.5 In 1841, the historian Passavant concluded that the van Eyck brothers, together, completed the diptych as a fraternal collaboration.6 While problems of ascription frequently emerge in any objective review of Jan van Eyck's catalogue, the Crucifixion and Last Judgment diptych is confounded moreover in that it may have originally existed as a triptych, with a central panel depicting the "Adoration of the Magi at the Nativity."7 Therefore, given its multitudinous discrepancies regarding when and even whom--to say nothing of the what of its initial from, tripartite now?--the Crucifixion and Last Judgment simply cannot be attributed to anyone with any type of authority. However, as the majority of art historians cite Jan van Eyck as the works' most probable creator, in the end, he still gets the credit.
With each panel's dimensions measuring 22.25 by 7.75 inches (56.5 x 19.7 cm), the oak-to-canvas diptych is not a particularly large composition. In fact, its compact size may help to explain how it ended up in its present home at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The two panels were purchased from a Spanish convent by Prince D.P. Tatistcheff--a former ambassador to Spain and Vienna for Tzar Nicholas I. In 1845, the two shutters and an accompanying central panel of the "Adoration of the Magi at the Nativity" were bequeathed to the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg. But upon acquisition by the Metropolitan Museum through the Fletcher Fund in 1933, the central panel had since been lost. To wit, the work currently exists as the bicameral Crucifixion and Last Judgment.8
Van Eyck painted the "Crucifixion" panel as a near eyewitness account of the most graphic event of Christ's Passion, set against a landscape rather astonishing for its depth and distance. The Roman spear having pierced his flesh, Jesus' blood spills onto the mocking, scornful crowd below. With this panel, van Eyck forever captured the precise moment of salvation so crucial to Christian dogma.9 And despite those theological implications, upon viewing this panel, one does become painfully aware of the awesome corporeality on display at Calvary. Not even Albert Schweitzer could find a more vivid depiction of the historical Jesus' earthly death.
While the "Last Judgment" panel is equally dramatic, its organization is more hierarchical, perhaps foreshadowing the celestial arrangement of the magnificent Ghent Altarpiece. According to Elisabeth Dhanens, the "symmetrical, flat and motionless" figure of the Almighty found in both the "Last Judgment" panel and the Altarpiece of the Mystic Lamb is illustrated from a "strictly frontal viewpoint, [and] without doubt echoes Early Christian and Byzantine traditions."10 And within the holy triumvirate residing at the tip-top of the "Last Judgment" panel, the scale of the figures, as in the Ghent Altarpiece, is cleverly manipulated to indicate their relative importance within Christian tradition.11 After all, when it comes to Vatican iconography, there's just no sense in ever playing it subtle.
Unlike the Altarpiece of the Mystic Lamb, though, the "Last Judgment" panel is replete with various Biblical inscriptions that re-emphasize the gravity of the ensconced images. Below the hands of Christ, the quotation from Matthew 25:34--"Venite benedi[c]ti p[at]ris mei" (Come, ye blessed of my Father)--appears twice as a triumphant salutation to the faithful herd granted access by their heavenly shepherd. Conversely, below the wings of the Archangel Michael, another quotation from the 25th book of Matthew, verse 41--"[Ite] vos maledi[ct]i i[n] ignem [aeternum]" (...ye cursed, into everlasting fire)--appears as harsh damnation to those descending into the pitted circles of hell. Unfortunately, time has rendered the inscription on the Archangel Michael's shield and armor illegible. Nevertheless, scrawled across the wings of Death himself are the chilling words, "CHAOS MAGNV[M] / VMBRA MORTIS" (Great Chaos / Shadow of Death)--easily seen and certainly understood by those poor souls who have witnessed his wrath. Finally, on the original gilt frames that housed the Crucifixion and Last Judgment, verses from the prophesies of Isaiah (53:6-9,12), the apocalypse of Revelation (20:13 and 21:3-4) and the laws of Deuteronomy (32:23-24) were inscribed that, yet again, spoke to the visible tumult there in the painting itself.12
Perhaps not the most celebrated work of the great van Eyck of Bruges, the Crucifixion and Last Judgment diptych nonetheless provides a stunning insight into his early figurative endeavors. These panels illustrate his ever-developing realism in tandem with a stark, yet redemptive notion of pre-Lutheran religiosity. On the left, Jan van Eyck paired down the essence of Christian existence to its Paschal marrow. And alongside, just to the right, well, therein rests the fate of those that would forsake it.
Notes:
1. Karel van Mander, Schilder-Boeck in Walter S. Melion, Shaping the Netherlandish Canon, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), 80.
2. Valentin Denis, All the Paintings of Jan van Eyck, trans. Paul Colacicchi (New York: Hawthorn, 1961), 57.
3. Melion, Shaping, 82.
4. Snyder, James, Northern Renaissance Art: Painting, Sculpture, the Graphic Arts from 1350-1575, (New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1985), 117-118.
5. Denis, All, 58.
6. Ibid.
7. Denis, All, 60.
8. Jan van Eyck, Crucifixion and Last Judgment Diptych, 1430, Metropolitan Museum of Art, https://www.metmuseum.org/collections/search-the-collections/436282 in The Collection: European Paintings, 14 November 2013.
9. Melion, Shaping, 84.
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