Crucifixion Triptych

Rogier van der Weyden painted this altarpiece in Brussels around 1443, when he was the city's official painter and Netherlandish art was the most admired in Europe. Across all three panels runs one continuous landscape, with the towers of Jerusalem set far in the distance, as if you could walk from wing to wing. The center holds the Crucifixion, Mary collapsing against the foot of the cross while John the Evangelist steadies her. Kneeling to the right are the two people who paid for it, the donors, and here van der Weyden did something quietly bold for his day. He split them from the sacred event with a thin crack in the ground. Painters after him often softened that gap, unsure whether living patrons belonged so close to the dying Christ.