#1 Którędy po sztukę - Sąd Ostateczny, Hans Memling

For the modern man the Last Judgment by Hans Memling Just like hundreds of thousands of other artworks displayed in museums around the world It is above all an aesthetic experience a artistic skill But for those who ordered these works hundreds of years ago The price was much higher It wasn't just about beauty though that was certainly important First and foremost it was about saving the soul The Memling work consists of three parts From the central largest and two side wings This type of image is called a triptych In the center we see what is most important the scene of the trial Jesus Christ as the ultimate judge judges people at the end of the world Michael the Archangel helps him in some way who weighs human souls The figures of Obie Christ and the Archangel Michael are positioned right in the center of the image They form a very clear compositional axis This type of hinge on which the rest of the composition relies The dead rise from the dead at the sound of the apocalyptic angelic trumpets I see here people rising from the grave Those who in panic and fear must confront this ultimate reality Angels and demons fight for their souls but ultimately what is most important is at the very beginning of the image We see this moment which is being decided Is the soul going to heaven or to hell The one who is here on the right of the Archangel Michael as well as on the right of the judging Jesus is heavier He is going down deprived Why is he going down Because his deeds his life have weight His life and his deeds outweighed the empty vain and meaningless This life that is meaningless to the one who is here on this scale struggling in convulsions tries to change this verdict He will not succeed this time He will fall into a hellish abyss shown extremely suggestively by Memling on the right wing of this triptych This is the heart of the story What we see on the left and right is already just a consequence The saved ascend the crystal stairs to heaven greeted by Saint Peter and the angels Welcome with angelic music and flowers which are thrown upon the resurrected saved ones But those who end up in hell there is no hope for them anymore It's already a maw an abyss terrible dreadful devils hairy How from such images of the devil That our visual culture still carries somewhere They really don't have any hope left here Ten fiery hell this hellish maw devours them entirely It's the composition that makes this painting unique How all the elements have been combined with each other Something like a compositional scheme that unites all these numerous yet so diverse elements If were to start somewhere here at the foot of John the Baptist o drawing such an arc such a type of ellipse we could go through the heads of the apostles rough the rhythm of the saved entering the stairs also those who fill it close to the frame at the bottom of the image Leading further into the depths of hell as if throwing it beyond the upper edge of this triptych Find something like an open ellipse in which actually some cosmic movement governs everything In which this direction this rhythm is thrown outside the composition itself This is extraordinary truly very innovative astonishingly so from a young artist This was practically the first important commission for Memling and already such a mature creation Today we look at Memling's triptych primarily as a work of art But when it was created it was actually something completely different Angelo Tani a very wealthy and influential agent of the Medical Bank in Bruges In the Netherlands he ordered the painting as part of his tomb chapel The tomb chapel was to have an altar with a Memling altarpiece placed upon it I to was all meant to aid in the celebration of liturgy and mass continuously performing masses for the soul of the deceased founder and his loved ones It was an incredibly complex investment one we can hardly even think about today We think in completely different categories For Taniego and his contemporaries however this was the most important