Image Details

Photo © 1998/Metropolitan Museum of Art/ Fletcher Fund 1933 (33.92a)

Jesus the Judge presides over the Last Judgment in this mid-15th-century oil painting by Jan Van Eyck. At bottom, demons and beasts torment the damned. The God of the New Testament is commonly identified as a God of Love, in opposition to the Old Testament’s crueler God of Justice. But, as columnist Leith points out, in both books, God must mete out justice and mercy.