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Saturday, November 1, 2014

All Saints Day - Adoration of the Lamb by Jan Van Eyck

The Adoration of the Lamb by Jan Van Eyck is the central panel of the famous Ghent altarpiece. (For a very high resolution look at the full altar piece, I highly recommend visiting this site.)

In this painting, we see the angels and saints adoring the Lamb of God, which provides an appropriate meditation on this All Saints' Day.



The entire, open altar piece looks like this. God the Father is in the center, flanked by the Blessed Virgin Mary on the left, and John the Baptist on the right. On the far left is Adam; the far right, Eve.












































To learn more about the Ghent altarpiece, I recommend these great videos from the SmartHistory series by the Khan Academy.





UPDATE: I also recommend this excellent blog post regarding All Saints' Day by Dr. Jeremy Holmes of Wyoming Catholic College. (Hat tip to Dr. Peter Kwasniewski for linking to it at the New Liturgical Movement.)