The Burning Sodom

Baldung's Burning Sodom from around 1537, paired with his Lot Drinking panel, depicts the divine destruction of the sinful cities of the plain in the explosive terms that made the subject a popular vehicle for dramatic light effects. The Sodom and Gomorrah narrative combined moral instruction—the cities' destruction as punishment for sexual transgression—with the visual opportunity of spectacular fire and divine intervention on a cosmic scale that appealed to both the Northern European taste for dramatic light effects and the moralizing culture of the Reformation period. Baldung's treatment of Sodom, with its combination of the burning city and the erotic narrative of Lot's daughters, demonstrates his characteristic interest in the intersection of sexuality and divine judgment that pervaded his secular and religious work in the 1530s.

The burning city creates dramatic contrasts between the fire's orange glow and the surrounding darkness. Baldung's handling of the conflagration creates an image of divine judgment rendered with graphic intensity.