The Ghent Altarpiece (wings open)

The Ghent Altarpiece (Adoration of the Lamb)
Artist: Jan van Eyck
Oil painting on panel; Size: 350x223 cm (closed), 350x461 cm (open); St. Bavo, Ghent.

The Ghent Altarpiece (Adoration of the Mystic Lamb) (Dutch: Het Lam Gods or The Lamb of God; completed 1432) is a very large and complex Early Netherlandish polyptych panel painting which is considered to be one of Belgium's masterpieces and one of the world's treasures.
The painting was begun by Hubert van Eyck, who died in 1426 while work was underway, and completed by his younger brother Jan van Eyck. The altarpiece represented a "new conception of art", in which the idealization of the medieval tradition gave way to an exacting observation of nature.
The Ghent Altarpiece consists of a total of 24 compartmented scenes, which make up two views, open and closed, which are changed by moving the hinged outer wings.
On the outside of the shutters (visible when they are closed) are depicted, in the bottom row, the donors Joos Vijd and his wife Isabelle Borluut, kneeling in front of statues of St. John the Baptist and St. John the Evangelist. The middle row houses the Annunciation, and the arched sections at the top, the Prophets Zechariah and Micah and the Erythraean and Cumaean Sibyls. When the shutters are open the work reveals, in the bottom row, the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, divided into five compartments, and in the upper row, Adam (The Ghent Altarpiece Adam) and Eve (The Ghent Altarpiece Eve) at the ends, God Enthroned (The Ghent Altarpiece God Almighty) in the middle, with the Virgin (The Ghent Altarpiece Virgin Mary) on his right and Saint John the Baptist (The Ghent Altarpiece St John the Baptist) on his left, flanked by angels singing and playing musical instruments (The Ghent Altarpiece Singing Angels) (The Ghent Altarpiece Angels Playing Music). The whole iconography of the polyptych turns around the representation of the Adoration of the Lamb (The Ghent Altarpiece Adoration of the Lamb).
The compartments at the sides represent the "upright judges" on the right (The Ghent Altarpiece The Holy Hermits) (The Ghent Altarpiece The Holy Pilgrims) and the knights of Christ on the left (The Ghent Altarpiece The Soldiers of Christ) (The Ghent Altarpiece The Just Judges), both groups are making their way toward the altar of the Lamb.