The Last Judgment (left wing, detail)

religious

The upper left corner of the central panel shows the ascent of the blessed into heaven. This passage is organized around two remarkable buildings: on the earth, a substantial spiral edifice surrounded by stairs and turrets; at the end of the journey, a heavenly palace designed as the epitome of Flamboyant architecture. This circular, insubstantial palace is formed of tall, slender arcades with elaborate tracery and delicately articulated buttresses and pinnacles.

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About the Artist

Jean Bellegambe

1470 – 1535

Flemish painter and designer. His father, George Bellegambe, a cabinetmaker and musician, was a prominent citizen of Douai. Jean is first mentioned in a document of 1504, when he is referred to as a master painter, a burgher and married. His teacher is unknown, but his work bears some imprint of the art of Jan Provost, who inherited Simon Marmion ’s studio. However, Bellegambe might equally have been apprenticed in Bruges or Brussels (possibly in the atelier of the Master of the Legend of St Mary Magdalen, for example), or even in Antwerp. The calm and serenity of Bellegambe’s compositions, his treatment of landscape, his lightness of technique, his pursuit of clear, soft colours and delicate harmonies all indicate links with the work of Gérard David and Quentin Massys. In the 17th century Bellegambe was known as 'the Master of Colours'.

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