Diptych by Jan van Eyck (1420s)

About This Artwork

This artwork is among one of the most terrifying depiction of Hell I ever encountered. The artwork consists of two panels. The first panel depicts the crucifixion of Christ. The second panel is composed of three parts: Heaven at the top, Earth in the middle, and Hell at the bottom. In the first panel, we can see Christ and two other being crucified, we can see Christ being thin and fragile, yet calm, while the crowd beneath him is chaotic and preoccupied with the undergoing event. The crowd consists of what appear to be soldiers, believers, onlookers, judges. Moreover, we can also see some Jesus followers like the Virgin Mary, and Mary Magdalene. In fact, what brought my attention in the first panel is the hand gesture made by Mary Magdalene as I have never encountered such gesture before. Her fingers are interlaced as if she is symbolically emphasizing that her situation is locked in despair, as though there is no way out of her suffering. Looking at the background we can see Jerusalem painted in such a cold blue tone in order to emphasize how much dystopian and out of touch life is there given that the greatest sacrifice is currently taking place. Notice the clothes of the crowd are a mix of Middle Eastern clothes and Flemish clothes. Also looking at Virgin Mary's blue attire, we can see one of van Eyck's early examples of his great attention to the texture of fabrics in artworks. In the second panel, starting from top, we see Jesus Christ surrounded by angels and saints. In the middle, we see the Archangel St. Michael wearing a golden armor and standing above the shoulders of death. Then, at the bottom, we see all the damned souls falling into the abyss of hell, tortured and devoured by horrible creatures. In fact, every religious art work that depicts such scenes, leads me to believe that this was the artist's best attempt in capturing their most vivid imagination of how Hell looks like. Some symbolism and observations I want to bring up: In Christian theology, the loss of Jesus is considered infinitely more sorrowful in magnitude compared to the loss of a human into the depths of hell. This is because Christ is understood as an eternal, infinite God-man. Therefore, any suffering he endures is considered infinitely much greater than any suffering a human. Yet, in this artwork, human suffering is so horrible that it becomes difficult for an average onlooker at this artwork to think beyond the fragility of human's one and only one chance in avoiding to end up like those condemned. The skeleton representing death is drawn with great symmetry. This is quite interesting in this context since the human mind is known to process symmetrical figures faster than non-symmetrical ones. Therefore, when we look at this artwork for the first time, our attention is drawn immediately to the scene of Hell. Christ's two appearances first as suffering and then as a judge is meant to show that God's patience has an expiration date. If we look at Jesus on the cross we see him silently closing his eyes and tilting his head downward, enduring pain and humiliation, but this passivity is not to be interpreted as a sign of weakness, but according to Christian theology, this is meant to represent a restrained containment of power. Thus, when we look next at the second panel, we see Christ's eyes are fully opened and his gaze and body posture is meant to feel direct like an active force. The artwork was commissioned by Philip the Good, one of van Eyck's primary patronage.

Artist

Jan van Eyck

Date experienced

Friday, October 30, 2026