Laatste Oordeel 1725

Jan Wandelaar etched this ‘Last Judgement’, filled with traditional symbols and iconography, in the 18th century. The figure of Christ sits enthroned in the heavens, ringed by light, while angels sound their trumpets below. This image, resonant with Christian eschatology, draws from a deep well of visual motifs tracing back to antiquity. The motif of the 'last trumpet', for example, is not unique to Christian art; it finds echoes in earlier cultures, signalling momentous, transformative events. Notice here how it serves not just as a heraldic device, but as an emotional trigger, stirring primal fears of judgement and revelation. Consider the 'Dies Irae,' the Day of Wrath. The etching is a symbolic reservoir, where collective anxieties and hopes find expression. It reminds us that images are never isolated; they are nodes in a vast network of cultural memory, continually reshaped by the currents of time and the subconscious.