WEYDEN, Rogier van der
(b. 1400, Tournai, d. 1464, Bruxelles)

The Last Judgment (detail)

1446-52
Oil on wood
Musée de l'Hôtel-Dieu, Beaune

Above is a cloud of gold, on which are seated the apostles, judges in the celestial tribunal, as well as a pope, a bishop, a king, a monk and three women. Below them is the earth, from which the resurrected souls emerge, to go either to damnation or to eternal bliss.

In line with traditional thinking, the dead have all risen at the age of 33, Christ's age when he died. The damned souls among them, crying out in despair, move of their own accord toward the fiery mouth of Hell. The limbs of the angular nude figures, still very Gothic in concept, create a complex interlocking pattern.