Rogier Van Der Weyden Analysis

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For most of the people living in modern times, art is only something they encounter while taking college courses, visiting museums, or watching Jeopardy. With this being said, your average person will only know a handful of artists, most likely of which being Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo, or maybe someone a little more current, like Andy Warhol. However, there are a plethora of artists who get overlooked by almost everyone who does not own an art textbook. If one shuffles through an art textbook, skipping the major names and pieces, many other beautiful and creative works of art can be discovered that were created by lesser known artists. One of these works was done by Rogier Van Der Weyden, and it is called the Last Judgement Altarpiece, started in 1444 and finished in 1448. …show more content…

At this time, Brussels was part of the Netherlands, and due to his geographical location, his artwork was different when compared to the Italian artists of the time. Van Der Weyden used oil paints to paint the Last Judgement, which was very common among the Northern European artists of the time, such as Jan Van Eyck. Many scholars agree that Van Der Weyden had an amazing talent of bringing out human emotions in his painting by creating very dramatic and intense scenes from the Bible, and the Last Judgement Altarpiece is no exception to this (Kleiner & Mamiya, 554). The Last Judgement Altarpiece was commissioned by Nicholas Rolin, and was to be placed in Hotel-Dieu, Beaune, France, a hospital. Many of the patients at the hospital believed that they were being punished by God. The Altarpiece provided a place for the inhabitants of the hospital to pray for God’s forgiveness (Kleiner & Mamiya,

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