Here, the souls are thrown into the mouth of the Leviathan. The scene is conjured with all the vividness of the 13th century imagination.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Last Judgment
One of the stained-glass windows of the cathedral of Bourges shows scenes the Last Judgment.
Here, the souls are thrown into the mouth of the Leviathan. The scene is conjured with all the vividness of the 13th century imagination.
Here, the souls are thrown into the mouth of the Leviathan. The scene is conjured with all the vividness of the 13th century imagination.
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6 comments:
Fascinating stuff. It sort of looks like a giant sea dragon in the way the artist interprets it. I always imagined that it would look more hippo like as they describe it in the bible.
Heavy black lines and vivid colours, monsters eating people...this could be published by eiter Marvel or DC Comics.
on that note:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/nov/07/sam-leith-shocking-news-oxford
Shocking news from Oxford: you can't play a flute with your bottom
Musicologists in Oxford have made exact replicas of instruments featured in the The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch. And, apparently, they sound 'horrible'
K_tigress - I thought it was the Behemoth (the Leviathan's land based 'counterpart') described as a hippo?
I've always found these old illustrations fascinating, especially the horrific ones, because there's some disparity between the expressions of the creatures and what it is they're doing. It makes it rather unsettling.
Nick and K Tigress--
I based the interpretation on the placard beneath the window in the cathedral, which quotes from the Epistle to the Romans 2,6. It says “The damned are thrown into the mouth of the Leviathan and the saved are led to the bosom of Abraham.”
Good point about the smiling demons. You're right--that creates an odd effect.
Erik, Absolutely--those stained glass windows are loaded with mind-boggling stories, and in the case of the 13th century people who saw them, I bet a lot of them couldn't read, so the pictures were incredibly important.
James, thanks for clearing that up. It's interesting knowing the damned are fed into it's mouth. That's made me see what I initially thought were many tongues as flames.
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