Title: Preface. The Ghent altarpiece, or, the adoration of the mystic lamb
Abstract: It is only a step-but what an important step-from the altarpiece of the Last Judgment (c.1446-1452), by Rogier van der Weyden in the Hospices de Beaune, to the Ghent altarpiece in Saint Bavo Cathedral (c.1430-1432), with its depiction of the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, by the brothers Hubert and Jan van Eyck. 1 Th e fi rst of these altarpieces is addressed to the sick and dying, and shows them the hope of resurrection, as the crust of the Earth is broken open by the bodies of the resurrected rising from the dead.A weighty topic is made even more serious here, as I tried fi rst to describe in one book (Le Passeur de Gethsémani [Th e guide to Gethsemane]) 2 and then to develop in another (Th e Metamorphosis of Finitude).Th e Resurrected One, taking on the form of a passeur, or guide, and showing a way or a "passage through," assumes responsibility for the blocked horizon of our existence, which he then transforms.Th at is what the polyptych of the Last Judgment taught us: what remained was to conceptualize it.And so in the introduction to Metamorphosis I discussed the "Beaune altarpiece or the germination of the resurrected."Th e second altarpiece (Figure 1), that of the Van Eyck brothers at Ghent (the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb), is addressed to the faithful and to communicants.It draws the eye of the spectator to a sacrifi cial lamb, a kind of setting for the consecrated Host, which is waiting to appear.As the last book of the Bible proclaims in a kind of beatitude echoed through the liturgy, "Blessed are those who are called to the supper of the Lamb [Beati, qui ad coenam nuptiarum Agni vocati sunt]" (Rev.19:9).