8 - Hell in the ‘Sweet Land’

Summary

Annemarie Weyl Carr examines the shifting imagery of post-mortem punishment in twenty-two depictions of the Last Judgment on Cyprus. The earliest versions, dating from the 12^th through mid-14^th century, cover three-dimensional, vaulted interiors. Centred on Christ, with degrees of punition arranged around him to contrast with either one another or beatitude, they present punishment as a range of conditions, not a place. The next group, dating from the mid-14^th through the 15^th century, are organised bilaterally around the scale of judgment, thus creating a clear differentiation between redemption and condemnation. Condemnation, however, remains chaotic, a state of being cast out, not a destination to which one goes. The final images, dating from the late 15th and16th centuries, occupy a single surface each. The Last Judgment may hover as a prophetic future, engulf as a wrap-around panorama, or spread in a landscape, but in each case, the events of punishment are in some way accorded a defined place. Thus, the Cypriot churches show a growing tendency to attribute spatial qualities to Hell. This space, however, embracing the whole of morality from sin and death through resurrection and judgement to damnation, has little in common with the Hell of western European art.