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| Peter Paul Rubens The Great Last Judgment 1617 oil on canvas Alte Pinakothek, Munich |
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| Peter Paul Rubens The Great Last Judgment (installation view) 1617 oil on canvas Alte Pinakothek, Munich |
An Immense Fragment
This work is immense, nearly twenty feet tall, yet gives the impression that one is viewing only a small portion of the Last Judgment. Christ, isolated atop an arch of clouds, raises the elect with his right hand while commanding the damned downward with his left. God the Father is half hidden behind more clouds above, and one can just make out the hovering dove of the Holy Spirit.
Thrust closer to the viewer is a massive spiraling loop of human bodies, nearly all of them unclothed. Nudes like these, generously built, with ample rolls of flesh – notably the women, but also the men – are characteristic of Rubens. On ground level people are rising from their tombs; we can even pick out among them a death's head. All seem astonished by what is happening. Along the left edge, female angels help these voluptuous figures to rise. Other angels welcome and greet them on their arrival, while on the opposite side angels are assisting the descent with similar amiability. Between the two, St Michael and the trumpeters of the Apocalypse.
The Counter-Reformation
With the Council of Trent, baroque sensuality came into its own. Defying Protestant sects, the Church officially endorsed splendor and pomp, newly emphasizing the theatrical aspects of religion (so strongly condemned by reformers), while overseeing the resurgence of what amounted to paganism. In this period wealth was lavished on extravagant forms of "sacred" display everywhere from Mexico to Rome. Difficult to imagine a Last Judgment more opulent than this one – the flesh of the damned every bit as appetizing as that of the saved. Rather than bodies in glory, the spectacle is of glorious bodies.
– translated and adapted from Le Musée imaginaire de Michel Butor: 105 œuvres décisives de la peinture occidentale (Paris: Flammarion, 2019)