Column: A Thousand Words
The Ghent Altarpiece, Part II
Hubert & Jan van Eyck
by Mary Elizabeth Podles
In the last issue, we looked at the exterior of the Ghent Altarpiece; in this issue, we open the doors. Accepting the theory that the panels were originally housed in a far more elaborate frame, and could be opened in different ways on different occasions, we will begin by unfolding the top tier and leave the lower doors shut for now.
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Mary Elizabeth Podles is the retired curator of Renaissance and Baroque art at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland. She and her husband Leon, a Touchstone senior editor, have six children and live in Baltimore, Maryland.
more on art from the online archives
32.4—July/August 2019
on Single-Mindedness in Durer's Ritter, Tod, und Teufel by Anthony Costello
33.2—March/April 2020
An Architectural Sign of Mere Christianity by Michael Ward
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more from the online archives
32.2—March/April 2019
Reality Shows, Even in a Popular TV Series by C. E. Smith
32.4—July/August 2019
on Probability, Death & the Existence of God by Graeme Hunter
