"The Seven Sacraments" by Rogier van der Weyden (1399–1464)

We're in the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp, looking at a large painting that is a triptych. This is The Seven Sacraments by Roger van der Weyden. Rogier van der Weyden, as we call him. This is an extraordinary painting in the sense that it tries to link life in the 15th century to religion. How does religion touch people's everyday lives? This happens, in this case, in a cathedral or a church. It might be the Church of St. Hudele in Brussels, maybe influenced by the Cathedral of Tournai. And we see Christ on the cross, perhaps the most important element in Christian Catholic religion, the fact that Christ died for the faithful, surrounded by depictions of the seven sacraments. And seven sacraments are seven important moments in the lives of the faithful, in which their personal lives are linked, you could say, to the death of Christ. Now, seven sacraments are baptism. We see a small child being baptized. Then we see the First Communion, the moment when a child is willfully accepted into the Church. The third sacrament is confession. And then in the large central panel is the Eucharist. We see a priest holding the wafer above the altar. And then on the right, we see a priest being ordained. And then there's the Sacrament of Marriage. And then the last one is the anointing of somebody who is dying. There are six angels above the sacraments. And the text that they're holding is explaining the link of these sacraments to the fact that Christ gave his life. That vividly painted representation of Christ on the cross is an image that we would expect to see outside on Golgotha in Jerusalem. But here it is in a 15th century Gothic church. There's an idea that before the Reformation, the word was not so important in the lives of everyday Christians. And that it was only after the Reformation that the word became more important in religious practice. But this painting shows how important texts and reading were before the Reformation. There are so many people who hold a book in their hand. There's a man standing besides the cross reading a text hanging from a pillar. There's a young woman sitting reading a book. Literacy was extremely high. It was amongst the highest in Europe in the Low Countries in the 15th century. And this panel proves that people were reading the Bible, were reading books of ours, et cetera. One of the aspects of this painting and of all of van der Weyden's work that is so compelling is the sense of veracity that he's able to achieve through a kind of precision, a kind of minute rendering that makes everything feel absolutely plausible. There's an enormous degree of realism. But another element that is extremely important in the work of van der Weyden is the emotion. He introduces deep, convincing emotions into painting. For example, in the grief of the Marys who are standing by the cross, they're weeping. You can feel their emotion. You can feel the sadness of John holding Mary. It's very convincing. And that veracity goes beyond emotion. It's seen in the very textures of the cloth that these women wear, and in the architecture that surrounds them. And the vividness of the color, the extraordinary variety of textures can be attributed not only to the artist's mastery, but to the fact that he's using oil paint. There's this very deep colors that you don't have with tempera painting that working with these layers of translucent paint, which of course reminds one of Jan van Eyck, who has long been attributed with inventing oil painting, which is not the case, but he was one of the first to apply the material in such a convincing way. And Rogeer van der Weyden does the same thing. And he turns his ability to create this kind of magical illusion to the representation, not only of the art of architecture, but the art of sculpture, and even the art of painting itself. This is an altarpiece depicting an altar with an altarpiece above the altar. So you can see a sculpted altarpiece standing on the altar. And then above is a beautiful polychrome sculpture of the Madonna and Jesus. And then behind her is another polyptych showing scenes from the life of Christ. At the time in the 15th century, there were all these chapels, each of which was intended to celebrate mass, which was sometimes going on at the same time. And we see at least three masses being celebrated in this one painting. Another element that I like very much are the dogs, which gives this feeling of entering in the 15th century reality. If you look at a sliver of a doorway on the right, you can see outside of the church, a little bit of the city beyond. And then stooped just before the doorway, we see two people who seem to be asking for alms. There are several portraits in the painting. There's only one that we've been able to identify as the portrait of the person for whom this painting was made. He was the Bishop of Tournai, Jean Chevreau. But we know that there are several other portraits. And a remarkable thing is we think that most of these portraits were made sitting in front of the person's portrait, but Roger van der Weyden had his workshop in Brussels, but these people weren't able to come to Brussels. So they were actually painted on tinfoil and then integrated into the painting. They were probably family members or friends of Jean Chevreau. And Chevreau was a highly educated administrator heading up the great council of Burgundy under Philip the Good and Isabella of Portugal. And so we can imagine that this triptych would have been seen in a very learned circle. It might have hung in the Cathedral of Tournai where Jean Chevreau had his own chapel. Jean Chevreau was from Poligny. It might be that this hung in his church there or in the Cathedral of Tournai where probably masses have been celebrated for or by people from his entourage. So indeed a very learned circle, although this will probably have been accessible for other people as well. I'm struck by Christ on the cross in the central panel just in front of the wafer that is the bread being held up, creating a perfect correspondence between mass and the event of Christ's own crucifixion. The polyptych above the altar being opened, this will probably have been a feast day, maybe even Easter. It seems to be that the painting is an invitation to spend time with each of these small groupings. With all of the individual textures, we're seeing fur and heavy woolens and gold banderols. We are quite used today to taking in an image in one view, but this is not an image to be taken in in one moment. This is more like a movie. You relish in the detail, but at the same time, you think about what is being shown and you discover all this symbolism, all these references. This is really a feast for the eyes.