The Last Judgment
Hello everyone! Today I would like to introduce you to the relief "The Last Judgment" on the semicircle frieze of the main entrance of the nave of orton Cathedral in central France, created in 1130 AD by the Romanesque sculptor Guisler Bedus, one of the few medieval artists whose works still survive to this day, and whose autograph is still left on the west side door of the church.
The representation of Christ as the Judge, the most popular subject of engraving at the time, meant that all worshippers entered the church under the stern gaze of the inquisitor, and the work of Giesler Bedous is one of the finest of these works.
He controls the entire composition with the gigantic body of Christ and the angular silhouette, with the good entering heaven on the left, the heavenly balance measuring the soul on the right, and the resurrected crowd on the lower level.
The most outstanding aspect of this relief in artistic technique is its figure shape, the slender and twisted body of God and angel, which adopts bold exaggeration, and some even reach the figure of eleven heads, earthworm-like figures, fully showing the author's ingenious conception and bold imagination.
Because the characters are exaggerated and deformed, the proportions are elongated, the head is small, and the facial expression is very frightening, this figurative infection is better than the expression power of words, and it is also a unique modeling method of medieval art.
Below the relief is a horizontal relief band that runs through the top of the door, composed of a variety of good and evil souls, which plays an important role in stabilizing the picture.
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