Weston Triptych (Christ) (triptych, right wing, outside)

The right exterior wing of the Weston Triptych depicts Christ in the same grisaille technique as its companion panel with John the Baptist. Together, the exterior panels would have presented a sober, sculptural appearance when the triptych was closed, contrasting dramatically with the full color revealed on feast days when the wings were opened. Rogier van der Weyden, the most influential Flemish painter of the mid-fifteenth century, combined Jan van Eyck's technical achievements in oil painting with a new emotional intensity and compositional drama that his predecessor's work had not achieved. His altarpieces for the major churches and institutions of Brussels, Bruges, and their international clientele defined the vocabulary of Flemish devotional art for two generations. Painters from Germany, France, Spain, and Italy absorbed and adapted his compositional formulas and his approach to devotional emotion, making him the single most important transmitter of Flemish painting technique and aesthetic to the broader European tradition.

Rogier's grisaille modeling creates a remarkably convincing illusion of carved stone, with fine tonal modulations and cast shadows that demonstrate his mastery of simulated three-dimensionality.