The Deesis on Van Eyck's Ghent Altarpiece: Its Potential for a Liturgical Theology Today

Already, on earth, souls are met with who are so united to Christ, souls whose faith is so complete, that even in the present life they are confirmed in grace. For example, the most Holy Virgin: she was predestined to a total exemption from sin, even original sin. That is a unique privilege. […] St. John the Baptist was sanctified in his mother's womb, and the Fathers of the Church tell us that he was confirmed in divine grace.

Dom Columba Marmion, Christ in His Mysteries, 224

1. Setting the Scene

It is a truism that Van Eyck's Ghent Altarpiece has fascinated and continues to be admired by numerous generations of spectators, believers, and artists, as well as political and religious leaders. The famous polyptych has known a tumultuous history. ¹ It was hidden at the time of the Reformation in the late sixteenth century, when there was twice a vehement outburst of iconoclasm among the population in Ghent; Napoleon and Hitler stole it; several panels disappeared or were sold; and it was saved from destruction more than once. Today, however, it is safe and well, painstakingly restored and kept under the best possible conditions, in the magnificent cathedral of Saint Bavo at Ghent, a prominent city in Flanders, Belgium, the origins of which date back to the early Middle Ages when two monasteries were founded at the confluence of the rivers Lys and Scheldt.

Recently, a new visitors center was built especially for the Ghent Altarpiece, a process that took at least four years and for which the city, the province, the region of Flanders, and the diocese joined forces. The festive opening of the center, which took place in the spring of 2021, could not attract a crowd, because of the COVID-19 pandemic. One year earlier, the same fate had befallen an ambitious and prestigious Van Eyck retrospective exhibition in Ghent. It would have been a once-in-a-lifetime experience, but the fact that the extremely valuable, and also vulnerable, pieces of art had to be returned to their proprietors before larger parts of the general public could admire them, signified a huge financial loss in addition to an administrative nightmare and a logistic challenge of sorts.

People can now follow different tours, however, in the visitors center with the help not only of cards and brochures, but also of holograms and virtual reality. The place for that is the Romanesque crypt of the cathedral, dedicated not to Saint Bavo but to Saint John—which is not a minor detail, as will soon become clear. After that curious experience, visitors are guided via stairs or a lift to the rear chapel of the cathedral, the chapel of the Blessed Sacrament. This chapel has a dark and exuberant baroque interior, but, particularly for practical reasons, it makes sense to exhibit the Ghent Altarpiece precisely there—even if it must be added that this is not the original chapel for which the polyptych was designed. Originally, the Ghent Altarpiece was meant for the Vijd chapel, Vijd being the name of the prominent citizen and merchant who sponsored both the construction of the chapel and the altarpiece at the time when the parish church of Saint John was significantly expanded ² and when Romanesque sobriety was replaced by Gothic splendor.

2. A Complicated Question

What I intend to attempt in this article is to answer the following question: How can Van Eyck's Ghent Altarpiece ignite liturgical theologians today to interpret and explain what it means to worship God? This question itself is complicated, because it supposes an interdisciplinary approach combing the expertise of art historians, theorists of art and beauty, church historians, systematic theologians, exegetes, and so on. That combination in itself is by no means exclusive here, because nobody can claim to oversee everything. Moreover, it implies that every synthesis, including the one presented below, is limited. The question is additionally complicated, however, since being willing to bridge the era of the late Middle Ages and the first quarter of the twenty-first century rests on a bias which not everybody would accept, at least not without reservations.

The bias underlying the present article is that this is indeed a meaningful thing to do: to bring into contemporary conversations in a plagued discipline the perspective of an elite piece of art which was produced at the command of an extraordinarily wealthy couple living at the time of Ghent's arguably most prosperous period in history, when it was the dukes of Burgundy who ruled the Low Countries and when, with the sole exception of Paris, Ghent was the largest city in Western Europe north of the Alps—not to mention the drastically changed worldview, aesthetic tastes, social customs, and religious attitudes of people then and now. So, why at all bother about medieval art in contemporary theology? What could a devotional culture and artistic talents from roughly 600 years ago—prior to even the Reformation and Trent—possibly tell us?

One of the points I shall make is that there is something timeless to both (great) art and (good) liturgy. This obviously does not mean that context is not important, but it does imply that context is not the ultimate criterion on which to base a judgement. Maybe the urge to contextualize is dominating contemporary academia too insistently, so that the art of finding ways to transcend, both intellectually and imaginatively, the immediacy of our existence has come under pressure. In other words, what we might need to do is to reconsider our (desire for) contextualizing and to put the very notion of “context” into perspective.

I think I find myself in good company with the Van Eyck brothers, ³ master-painters, who cared a lot about context but who were not restlessly preoccupied with contextualization of their work. At the request of Joos Vijd and his spouse Elisabeth Borluut, whom one can see in the lower corners of the closed polyptych, ⁴ they created a unique masterpiece to serve the purpose of a daily Mass for the salvation of their patrons’ souls and for the souls of their family. While not discounting that, unlike the more famous younger brother Jan, the elder brother Hubert was an ordained clergyman, it is highly likely that they sought and found, or were given, theological input from outstanding contemporary theologians. Jean Gerson is one of the possibilities, but also Jan Van Impe, one of the earliest alumni of the University of Leuven's theological faculty and parish priest at Saint John's in Ghent in the 1430s. ⁵

In the attempt to connect this particular fifteenth-century piece of art with contemporary concerns in liturgical theology, it is assumed that “liturgical reality” can take on different shapes and forms. In other words, what liturgy is, does, and stands for happens through a variety of actions and material artefacts. The ways in which liturgy becomes approachable, accessible, experienceable, and intelligible are many and diverse. One of the tasks of liturgical theology is to think about and to show how these different ways cohere, how, despite and beyond heterogeneity, dissimilarity, and dissimultaneity, they reveal God's saving mystery, and how they contribute to the church's mission of letting every person share in God's grace and mercy. ⁶ Underlying the present article is the conviction that aspects of this “liturgical reality” are mediated through noted pieces of art, including the Ghent Altarpiece, just as they are mediated through liturgical and sacramental celebrations by a gathered assembly today.

3. The Altarpiece's (Retable's) Iconographic Program, Briefly

As a matter of fact, the title “Ghent Altarpiece” arises out of mere convention. It describes what it is, an altarpiece, or retable, and where it has to be situated, Ghent, but it does not unveil what one can see on the different panels which together constitute the polyptych. This is a salient difference between the English title and the name through which this magnificent piece of art is commonly known in Dutch: De aanbidding van het Lam Gods, The Adoration of the Lamb of God, or, simply, Het Lam Gods. ⁷

When the polyptych is opened, it is indeed a bleeding lamb standing on an altar which immediately attracts the attention. An interesting detail is that the in-depth examinations prior to the most recent restorations have shown that for centuries people have gazed at a rather big sheep staring into the void. Below that surface was discovered the head of a slightly more slender animal, which looks the beholder straight in the eyes. This discovery led Luc Dequeker, emeritus professor of Old Testament Exegesis and Semitic Languages and a prominent specialist of the Ghent Altarpiece, to say that, originally, it was not the paschal lamb that one saw on the central panel but the lamb of the Apocalypse. ⁸ While there is of course not much difference between both from a theological point of view, the difference nevertheless matters pictorially.

Indeed, the connection with the book of Revelation pervades the retable's entire iconographic program. ⁹ This being said, one should not forget that it was taken for granted in the Middle Ages that the Apocalypse was written by Saint John—the same Saint John who was the patron saint of the parish in the city center of Ghent, and the same Saint John whom we thus find on the closed polyptych. Also on the closed polyptych between Joos Vijd and his wife, we find painted statues of the two New Testament Saint Johns: the Baptist and the evangelist. ¹⁰ These two together, so closely related to the couple commissioning the altarpiece, constitute a major reading key for the entire artwork.

In chapter 5 of the Apocalypse, mention is made of “a Lamb standing as if it had been slaughtered” (Rev 5:6) and of “twenty-four elders [who] fell before the Lamb” (Rev 5:8). They are joined by angels in their solemn songs of praise. In chapter 7 we read: “After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands” (Rev 7:9).

On the central panel one does indeed see people approaching the Lamb from the four corners of the earth. The people closest to the angels around the altar, who show the instruments of Christ's passion, are representing the Old Testament, the non-Jewish pre-Christian as well as the contemporary non-Christian world, the New Testament, and the Church. One sees patriarchs, prophets, apostles, popes, bishops, mitered abbots, and different kinds of saints according to an age-old classification system of martyrs, confessors, and virgins. Many of them cannot be precisely identified, but some of them are recognizable beyond doubt: New Testament Saint Stephen, who carries the stones with which he was murdered in the apron of his dalmatic; local Saint Livinus, holding the pincer with which his tongue was torn out; popular Saint Barbara, with the tower in which, according to legend, her father enclosed her, and so forth.

On the panels to the left side of the central panel one sees those people approaching the altar who represent Christ in the public domain, at least according to late medieval societal conventions. They are the knights and the judges, and in the background, one observes buildings representing “culture.” On the right side of the central panel, one observes the eremites and pilgrims who embody Christ in the religious domain. The pilgrims are headed by Saint Christopher, portrayed as a giant. In the background of these panels one sees opulent vegetation representing “nature.”

This nature and culture place the space of the central panel's paradisiacal garden, with its many healing plants and allusions, to the heavenly Jerusalem in the background, in a proper perspective. The Eucharist was thought and taught to offer the medicine of immortality to believing souls. Note also the blue sky with white clouds on the five lower panels, with the sun being replaced by a dove. It is the light of the Holy Spirit which, quite literally, radiates onto the whole earth. Conversely, the whole earth is joined in honoring the Lamb on the altar: everything and everyone is drawn towards the Eucharist. In anachronistic Vatican II language, it is “the source and the summit” of the Christian life, where everything leads to and from which everything starts.

If the five lower panels of the polyptych symbolically represent the earthly liturgy, the five upper panels may be said to constitute the heavenly liturgy. There is no sky here above or behind the figures; it is the realm of heaven. One sees an enthroned male figure in an exuberant red garment at the center, flanked by a female figure in blue at his right side and a male figure wearing a green cloak on his left. Obviously, they are Mary and John the Baptist. Next to these two, on both sides, we find angels who sing (left) and make instrumental music (right). The human figures of Adam (left) and pregnant Eve (right), whose nakedness was for centuries covered, complete the heavenly scene. Note that the background here is not in blue tints but much darker—in my opinion deliberately so.

This detail appropriately renders the existentially ambiguous situation of humankind: duly prepared for the ultimate reconciliation with God, thanks to the accomplished mission of Christ, but not yet part of the heavenly choirs; essentially equipped for full participation in the angelic glory, but not (properly) dressed. I think it is of immense theological importance that Adam and Eve are elevated on the upper level in Van Eyck's polyptych. It is neither Renaissance optimism, nor medieval pessimism, neither modern overestimation, nor pre-modern underestimation. It nevertheless requires a good deal of audacity to interpret the human condition as standing with one leg already in heaven. It makes one ponder: Do our contemporary liturgical eschatologies overemphasize the “not yet” aspect of salvation? Where is the intellectual daring to equally voice the “already” dimension? Have we somehow become paralyzed by the fear of receiving the “you tend to look away from misery and injustice” reproach?

4. The Enthroned Figure: Jesus Christ or God the Father?

Many more things could be discussed, but I now want to focus on the central figure in the heavenly realm. In the history of interpretations of Van Eyck's masterpiece, this figure has mostly been identified with God the Father. For example, we know that Albrecht Dürer, who came to visit the retable a century after it had been solemnly exposed in the Vijd chapel, was firmly convinced it was the Father. ¹¹ There continue to be many guides that present the complex iconographic program of Van Eyck's polyptyh as being built around a Trinitarian framework. In this approach, the idea is that the crucified and risen Son is exemplified by the Lamb on the altar, the Holy Spirit, above the Lamb, as the sun radiating into the entire world (including that of the beholder), and the Father, above the dove, as creator of the universe overseeing everything. There are several of these vertical depictions of the Trinity in Western art history, such as Masaccio's renowned fresco in the Santa Maria Novella at Florence, dating about the same time as Van Eyck's altarpiece. But none of these paintings has the Trinity with a lamb instead of a crucifix.

There is a growing consensus that one needs to interpret the central figure on the upper level of the polyptych not as God the Father but as God the Son, the heavenly Christ. Clearly, the divinity of Christ is profiled; no reference to his wounds can be observed on either hands or feet. One of the most compelling arguments in favor of seeing in the enthroned figure the Son instead of the Father is based on classical Byzantine iconography, with which historians claim that Van Eyck, unlike later artists, would have been familiar.

One of the traditional iconographic patterns is the deesis, which literally means entreaty, supplication, or intercession. The pattern consists of a heavenly Christ sitting on a throne—that is to say, Christ as a king or as a judge—, a maiestas Domini, sometimes surrounded by the four beasts (referring to the evangelists), and flanked by icons of his mother, Mary, and his predecessor, John the Baptist. ¹² On iconostases in Byzantine churches one frequently finds an entire row of icons with these three figures at the center. Angels and saints are often next to Mary on the left-hand side, and angels and saints next to the Baptist on the right-hand side, located on the deesis row.

This pattern is clearly observable on the Ghent Altarpiece. I even think that the presence of singing angels and angels making music is a strong argument in favor of a deesis pattern, and therefore an argument for identifying the central figure on the upper level with the Son of God. That the music of the two angelic groups is directed towards Christ is moreover suggested even by the tiles of the floor on which they are standing: that this is a different floor than the one under the feet of the three central figures, but is oriented towards a point beyond them. On its tiles are found “Alpha-Omega” and “IHS” emblems, as well as a lamb pierced by a banner of victory. All of these refer to Christ the Son of God, not, at least not directly, to God the Father.

Additional arguments can be found in several more panel details which have been applied by the painters and their team with extraordinary skill.

Behind the figure on the throne one finds in gold brocade images of a pelican feeding baby birds. It rests on false biological observations, but the idea that pelicans feed their chicks with their own blood led people in bygone centuries to associate these impressive birds with Christ. As far as one knows, pelicans have never been associated with God the Father; neither is it likely, by the way, that Van Eyck ever saw a real pelican—which might explain why those visible here actually look rather like an eagle.

Another detail relates to some text woven in pearls on the hem of the impressive red garment of the central figure. It reads “rex regum et dominus dominantium,” King of Kings and Lord of Lords, a title from Scripture made famous by yet another timeless piece of art, Handel's Messiah, which, significantly, is never applied to the person of the Father. Moreover, its source is, once again, the book of Revelation, where one reads: “On his robe and on his thigh he has a name inscribed, ‘King of kings and Lord of lords’” (Rev 19:16). And just a few verses earlier it says: “He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is called The Word of God” (Rev 19:13). This scarlet color stands for love, of course, and contrasts nicely with the blue of faith (Mary) and the green of hope (John the Baptist). As such, these three colors constitute not only an artistic but also a major theological theme of the entire polyptych. ¹³

The third and last detail I mention is connected to the deesis pattern, and some intriguing artistic freedom Van Eyck allowed himself. Instead of the classical petitionary or supplicatory attitude of the Baptist and Jesus’ mother, Van Eyck depicted Mary as a crowned queen in a quiet meditative posture and the Baptist, somewhat surprisingly (since he didn't write anything), with a book on his lap. It is the book of Isaiah opened at the page where chapter 40 starts, that is to say, with the words Consolamini, consolamini. This is the passage which reveals the nature of the Baptist's own mission to “make straight in the desert a highway for our God” (Isa 40:3). We should especially look here, however, at John the Baptist in his role of the one who pointed to the Lamb of God. Note his finger emphatically pointing to the figure next to him, something exceptional in images of the heavenly realm, where we usually see him in an orante position. In any case, it is something which the Baptist never does with respect to the Father. Of course, this is again something related to the other Saint John, the evangelist in whose gospel John the Baptist famously declared “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:19), Ecce Agnus Dei, qui tollit peccata mundi. It is the only scene which is repeated on both the closed and the opened retable.

5. Incentives for Liturgical Theology Today

With all the knowledge gained about the Ghent Altarpiece, and in tune with the suggestions I already made, I think it is now fitting to develop some thoughts about contemporary liturgical theology. I group them in four clusters; rather than assertions or positions, they are meant to be reflections and to raise additional questions. Their major purpose is solely to stimulate further research and conversation.

At a methodological level, liturgical theologians could ask whether the standard eucharistic theologies in different Churches depend too much on the (synoptic) gospels alone. Without denying the historical and theological importance of the accounts of the Last Supper for the understanding of the Eucharist, today we may need a certain correction from the perspective of the Apocalypse and Hebrews. ¹⁴ There may be a lot of wisdom there to rediscover, especially when it comes to making connections between and beyond individual spatiotemporal environments in which the Eucharist is celebrated and, correspondingly, expanding the horizon of communion in Christ. Or is that merely wishful thinking, and something we ought not reconsider?

As to a cautious and inchoative response to this last question, I am inclined to disagree, and instead to see in Van Eyck’s The Adoration of the Lamb of God a rich and even timely source of inspiration for a liturgical theology today, meaningfully combining insights and perspectives on the Eucharist from the whole New Testament.

Are we prepared to agree with Pavel Florensky and regard Van Eyck's Ghent Altarpiece as an iconostasis? Florensky understands an “iconostasis” not only as a material construction, which it obviously is in Byzantine churches, but also as “a vision,” “a manifestation of saints and angels,” “a boundary between the visible and invisible worlds.” As such it functions as “a boundary by being an obstacle to our seeing the altar, thereby making it accessible to our consciousness by means of its unified row of saints […] that surround the altar where God is, the sphere where heavenly glory dwells, thus proclaiming the Mystery.” ¹⁵

This reference to Byzantine Christianity may be revealing and inspiring for liturgical theologians today for more than one reason only. It may help them leave behind certain sclerotized ways to depict Western versus Eastern Christianity and look beyond obsolete schemas which interpret the relationship between both exclusively antagonistically. It may broaden and deepen the understanding of icons by not restricting them to specific painted artefacts coming forth from Greek and Slavonic cultures only. It may inspire them to think and imagine more aspects and dimensions of Christian faith and worship “iconologically,” by exploring and developing the “logic” of “icons” in liturgical celebrations, works of art, theological writings, and spirituality.

How do we imagine Jesus Christ as a Lamb and as a King or a Judge on a throne today? Clearly, one is confronted with a fascinating “juxtaposition” of “saving images” here, relying on and inspired by Scripture. ¹⁶ These have exerted a formidable influence on the Christian imagination, theology, spirituality, and art, but there is no evidence that people have to come to terms with them in the present context, where many are inclined to dislike the undeniable hierarchical and sacrificial undertones in these images. They might instead suppose that they have in the meantime developed a more mature biblical hermeneutic, that is, one more in tune with contemporary horizontalizing sensitivities.

No matter how valuable these reactions and reflections are, I think that the Ghent Altarpiece invites liturgical theologians to look afresh at the images of the Lamb of God and of Christ the King. They may find meaning in the fact that the crown symbolizing all the earthly powers is at the feet of the Christ figure (with a possible reference to Psalm 110:1). The contrast is made between the earthly powers which slaughter and continue to kill innocent victims, like lambs, while in heaven these powers have been disarmed and disempowered by an immense offer of beauty and goodness. Moreover, there may be a certain irony and political message involved in the fact that on the central upper panel it is not the pope who wears the tiara, but Christ. This detail in itself may disarm certain presuppositions towards contemporary hesitations vis-à-vis thinking in terms of celestial hierarchies. How much inspiration is there to be found in a prophetic liturgical vision in which all the ecclesial, political, military, and economic powers have lost their strength and submitted themselves to the Son of God?

In a similar vein, new though slightly unsettling thoughts surrounding Christ's triumph may emerge when contemplating the Ghent Altarpiece. In many ordinary Christian circles there is some hesitation, if not an overall uneasiness, to name and proclaim Christ's victory, and thus also serious doubts to celebrate precisely that in the liturgy. Theologians might hasten to add that framing the Christian message in concepts alluding to and relying on Christ's triumph is dangerous if not entirely inappropriate, because it could be seen to legitimate discourses which stigmatize minorities, adherents to other religions, and people who have hardly been in touch with the gospel or the Church.

While it is certainly true that one has to be very attentive not to employ such discourses and even to uncover and dismantle their destructive derogatory impact (and worse), it does not follow that the image of Christ's triumph must be silenced and sidelined. On close inspection, we find that this image permeates the whole celebration of the Eucharist, for it is by no means a victory for which humans can take credit, but a victory over sin, death, and evil, central to the redemptive action of the entire Paschal mystery. It is not a military or mental battle that is won, but the flaws of human existence itself that are overcome, once and for all.

This victory is such a wonderful given, that all the saints, each in their own way and with their own life, would wish nothing more than to be close to it. Liturgical theologians are thus invited to take part in one of the processions on the panels of the polyptych and thereby worthily to approach the altar and the throne together with the saints. In doing that, they can become active, conscious, full and real partakers of the praying parade joining Mary, John the Baptist, the angels, and the saints in handing over, in a very real way, every human prayer into the hands of the one who is the real ruler of the universe. For that is the ultimate meaning of the deesis on Van Eyck's Ghent Altarpiece.