Lecture 15: Northern Renaissance Altarpieces
arti¿ cial situation, suggesting painted sculpture that has come to life. The
anguish in this painting is expressed in many subtle and vivid ways. St. Mary
Magdalene displays a physical spasm of grief, while the female saint whose
head is at the far left internalizes her grief. She almost presses it back into
her head, but her head and neck cloth betray her emotions, made visible by
the tightly pulled creases and knots. This public altarpiece is also one of the
most private, personal devotional pictures of the 15th century, a compelling
response to intense contemplation.A decade later, Rogier ful¿ lled a major commission for the Hôtel-Dieu
(“hostel of God”), a hospital at Beaune, south of Dijon in present-day France.
The building has survived, and its interior has been restored to a semblance
of its original appearance, but the altarpiece has been moved to another
part of the monastery. Our illustration shows the courtyard at the hospital
at Beaune. The interior shows the main ward (grand salle), built from
1443–1451. Nicholas Rolin, the powerful chancellor of Burgundy under
Duke Philip the Good, wanted to build a hospital for the poor. The plan was a
response to a great famine in 1438–1439 which, together with epidemics, had
devastated Burgundy. Rolin offered a detailed plan for the use, design, and
equipping of the hospital, as well as for ¿ nancing it in perpetuity. In 1442,
the pope approved the plan and granted exemption from feudal taxation and
the control of neighboring bishops.Rogier’s Altarpiece of the Last Judgment (c. 1445–1448) is on the exterior.
When closed, the tall central section showed two ¿ ctive sculptures of
the Annunciation at the top, with ¿ ctive sculptures of St. Sebastian and
St. Anthony Abbot below. Both saints regularly were invoked for protection
against the plague. The À anking panels are portraits of Chancellor Rolin and
his wife, Guigone de Salins. The hospital complex also was to serve as their
funerary monument to secure the absolution of their sins, as an exchange of
temporal goods for spiritual bene¿ ts. This sober exterior, all imitation white
marble and black robes, opens to an explosion of color and dramatic ¿ gures
in the Last Judgment.The Last Judgment in the interior has nine panels. Looking at the bottom of
this painting, we see the dead arise from their earthly graves and head toward
their eternal reward. The blessed are on Christ’s right and the eternally