Crucifixion Diptych (van der Weyden) The painting's provenance prior to the mid-19th century is unknown. Its extreme starkness has led art historians to theorize that it was created as a devotional work, possibly for a Carthusian monastery. It is not known if the panels comprised a self-contained diptych, two-thirds of a triptych, or originally were a single panel. Some art historians have mentioned that the work seems unbalanced overall and lacking symmetry (which might indicate a missing panel or panels). Recent scholarship proposes that the panels functioned as the outer shutters of a carved altarpiece. The background to the panels is unknown. Scholars have theorized
Altarpiece Reformation regarded the Word of God – that is, the gospel – as central to Christendom, and Protestant altarpieces often displayed the actual words from the bible, sometimes at the expense of pictures. With time, Protestant though gave birth to the so-called pulpit altar, or "Kanzelaltar" in German, in which the altarpiece and the pulpit are combined, thus making the altarpiece quite literally the abode of the Word of God. Canvas painting started to replace other types of altarpieces during the mid-16th century and onwards. The Middle Ages was the heyday of the production and use of altarpieces. While many