Winged Beast by Grunewald

Description

Recluse Anthony is besieged by Forces of Darkness. This scene if from the right-hand panel of the Isenheim altarpiece. The Isenheim Altarpiece was executed for the hospital chapel of Saint Anthony’s Monastery in Isenheim in Alsace and is now at the Unterlinden Museum in Colmar, a nearby town. It is a carved shrine with two sets of folding wings and three views. The first, with the wings closed, is a Crucifixion showing a harrowingly detailed, twisted, and bloody figure of Christ on the cross in the center flanked, on the left, by the mourning Madonna being comforted by John the Apostle, and Mary Magdelene kneeling with hands clasped in prayer, and, on the right, by a standing John the Baptist pointing to the dying Savior. At the feet of the Baptist is a lamb holding a cross, symbol of the “Lamb of God” slaughtered for man’s sins.