1505, Jan Provoost, The Last Judgment -- Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge)
From the museum label:
Provoost’s painting depicts Judgment Day, with Christ looming over the earth, his feet resting on an iridescent orb. Dark gray clouds overlap the gilded sky. The sword and the lily that flank Christ’s head, and his powerful gaze directed outward at the viewer, signify his imminent division of the blessed from the damned. Flying between heaven and earth, four angels sound long curved trumpets to the souls below, who await judgment.
The apocalyptic landscape is eerily barren, devoid of any vegetation or architecture and populated only by figures scantily draped in white cloths. Each seems to occupy a discrete psychic space; some pray, while others, set along the horizon beneath the pale sky, seem unaware of the cosmic event above. Although the subject of this painting suggests that it could have hung in a religious institution, images of the Last Judgment were also frequently displayed in city halls and courthouses, as a means of validating secular institutions’ claims to divine authority.
1505, Jan Provoost, The Last Judgment -- Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge)
From the museum label:
Provoost’s painting depicts Judgment Day, with Christ looming over the earth, his feet resting on an iridescent orb. Dark gray clouds overlap the gilded sky. The sword and the lily that flank Christ’s head, and his powerful gaze directed outward at the viewer, signify his imminent division of the blessed from the damned. Flying between heaven and earth, four angels sound long curved trumpets to the souls below, who await judgment.
The apocalyptic landscape is eerily barren, devoid of any vegetation or architecture and populated only by figures scantily draped in white cloths. Each seems to occupy a discrete psychic space; some pray, while others, set along the horizon beneath the pale sky, seem unaware of the cosmic event above. Although the subject of this painting suggests that it could have hung in a religious institution, images of the Last Judgment were also frequently displayed in city halls and courthouses, as a means of validating secular institutions’ claims to divine authority.