Descent of Christ into Limbo

Bartolomé Bermejo's Descent of Christ into Limbo from around 1475 is one of the Spanish master's most theologically complex compositions, depicting the Harrowing of Hell — Christ's descent between the Crucifixion and Resurrection to liberate the souls of the righteous dead who had been waiting since before his coming. Bermejo, working in Aragon and Catalonia, was among the few Iberian painters of the fifteenth century who genuinely absorbed Flemish technique at its most sophisticated, and his oil painting skills rival those of any contemporary in the Netherlands. The Harrowing was a popular subject in Iberian devotional culture influenced by late medieval mystical literature, which described the event in vivid physical terms. Bermejo's version likely combines demonic grotesques with portraits of the liberated patriarchs in the manner of his more celebrated Pietà in Barcelona Cathedral.

Bermejo applies Flemish oil technique to an Iberian subject with full command of the medium's capacity for detail: metallic armour, semi-transparent drapery, and the contrasting textures of stone, skin, and fabric are rendered with a precision that places this work among the most technically ambitious paintings in the Iberian peninsula of the period. Light emanates from the radiant figure of Christ, creating strong directional illumination in an otherwise dark composition.