Adoration of the Lamb from the Ghent Altarpiece

The Adoration of the Lamb is the central panel of the Ghent Altarpiece, depicting the heavenly liturgy described in the Book of Revelation. The panel around 1450 (after the original completion in 1432) shows the Lamb of God on an altar surrounded by angels, with processions of saints converging from all directions. The Ghent Altarpiece, completed in 1432 and among the most significant works in Western art, established the parameters of Flemish painting for the following century. The polyptych altarpiece — with its complex iconographic program of the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, the Annunciation, donor portraits, and prophets — demonstrated the full range of possibilities that the new oil painting technique could achieve: the luminosity of stained glass combined with the representational specificity of physical observation. Jan van Eyck's contribution to what was already in progress when his brother Hubert died in 1426 cannot be precisely determined, but the work's technical achievements belong to the tradition he established.

The vast landscape is rendered with aerial perspective that extends to distant cities and mountain ranges. Van Eyck's botanical precision is evident in the meadow flowers, each species identifiable among the hundreds of individual plants.