The Fall of the Damned | |
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Dutch: Val der verdoemden in de hel, De val van de verdoemden, French: La Chute des damnés | |
Artist | Dirk Bouts |
Year | c. 1468 |
Catalogue | 17 |
Medium | oil on panel |
Movement | Early Netherlandish, Primitifs flamands |
Dimensions | 115 cm× 69,5 cm(45 in× 274 in) |
Location | Palais des Beaux-Arts, Lille |
Accession | P1808 (Louvre inv. RF 1113) |
Website | https://pba.lille.fr/Collections/Chefs-d-OEuvre/Moyen-Age-et-Renaissance/La-Chute-des-damnes |
The Fall of the Damned (Dutch: De Val van de verdoemden) is an oil on panel painting by Dieric Bouts, completed in 1470. It was produced as the rightmost section of a triptych of a Last Judgment scene commissioned for the town hall of Louvain, Belgium, in 1468. The central panel of the triptych is lost, but the left side panel (or shutter), the Ascension of the Elect , survives along with the Fall of the Damned. The set of images would have drawn narrative inspiration from Genesis 2:10, the Book of Revelation and from the Purgatory of St Patrick , a 14th-century Irish manuscript by Berol telling of Sir Owein's legendary trip to Purgatory. [1] The Fall has been on permanent loan from the Louvre to the Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille, [2] [3] where it has been reunited with the Ascension since 1957. [4]
The triptych was commissioned for the town hall of Louvain in mid-1468, with a contract signed later that year. Records further show that it would have been completed in 1469 and installed in the town hall in 1470. [5] [6] "The appearance of the missing central panel is known from a crude copy in the Munich Alte Pinakothek." [7] [8]
Writers note how the two outer paintings function as pendants in their striking but harmonious pairing, featuring a green, earthly paradise on the left against the "contrasting shapes, color, figures and their expressions of torment" [6] in the right panel. There, Hilde Clase writes, "in a volcanic landscape, the damned are sinking into the hell from the weight of their sins" in a "well-balanced composition." [9]
Further evidence for the relationship of the two works is drawn from the alignment of carpentry and metalwork for hinges and a lock, suggesting the outer panels would have served as shutters over a central panel while in closed position. [6]
Max Friedländer assigned the panel as "belong[ing] to the master's mature works." [4]
Bouts evidently took inspiration for the theme and content from the conventional depiction of the Last Judgment, but also the Visio Tnugdali. [10] Art historians have found sources for Bouts specific choices in the work of Rogier van der Weyden [6] (for example, his Last Judgment in Beaune), from Hans Memling's treatment of the subject in Gdansk [10] and from the pictorial tradition of illuminated manuscripts [9] The composition and mood of Bouts' example were taken up by Hieronymus Bosch in his Fall of the Damned into Hell from 1490 and Simon Marmion's Visions of Tondal from 1475. [6] The Bouts painting received cleaning, repair, or conservation treatments in 1543, 1628, 1904, 1941, 1951, 1971 and 1997. [5]
Hans Memling was a German-Flemish painter who worked in the tradition of Early Netherlandish painting. Born in the Middle Rhine region, he probably spent his childhood in Mainz. During his apprenticeship as a painter he moved to the Netherlands and spent time in the Brussels workshop of Rogier van der Weyden. In 1465 he was made a citizen of Bruges, where he became one of the leading artists and the master of a large workshop. A tax document from 1480 lists him among the wealthiest citizens. Memling's religious works often incorporated donor portraits of the clergymen, aristocrats, and burghers who were his patrons. These portraits built upon the styles which Memling learned in his youth.
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Dieric Bouts was an Early Netherlandish painter. Bouts may have studied under Rogier van der Weyden, and his work was influenced by van der Weyden and Jan van Eyck. He worked in Leuven from 1457 until his death in 1475.
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Jan Rombouts the Elder, Jan Rombouts (I) (c. 1480 in Leuven – 1535 in Leuven), was a Flemish Renaissance painter, glass painter, draftsman, printmaker and glass designer. The subjects of his work are stories from the Old and New Testament and the lives of Christian saints. He was active in Leuven where he introduced the Renaissance innovations of Bernard van Orley and the Antwerp school.
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