Diptych in the context of "Wilton Diptych"

Late antiquity is a period of time that comes after the end of classical antiquity and stretches into the beginning of the Early Middle Ages, though the exact start and end dates are debated. Late antiquity represents a cultural sphere covering much of the Mediterranean world, including parts of Europe and the Near East.

Late antiquity was an era of massive political and religious transformation. Religiously, it marked the origins or ascendance of the three major monotheistic religions: Christianity, rabbinic Judaism, and Islam, as well as the period when both the Bible and the Quran were canonized. Politically, it marked the ends of the Western Roman Empire and the Sasanian Empire (the last Persian empire of antiquity), as well as the beginning of the Arab conquests and the formation of the Rashidun Caliphate. Meanwhile, the Byzantine Empire became a militarized and Christianized society. Late antiquity was also an era of significant cultural innovation and transformation, marked by the emergence of public architecture like the Hagia Sophia, and the emergence of late antique literature and art.

The Barberini ivory is a Byzantine ivory leaf from an imperial diptych dating from Late Antiquity, now in the Louvre in Paris. It represents the emperor as triumphant victor. It is generally dated from the first half of the 6th century and is attributed to an imperial workshop in Constantinople, while the emperor is usually identified as Justinian, or possibly Anastasius I or Zeno. It is a notable historical document because it is linked to queen Brunhilda of Austrasia. On the back there is a list of names of Frankish kings, all relatives of Brunhilda, indicating her important position. Brunhilda ordered the list to be inscribed and offered it to the church as a votive image.

Although it is not a consular diptych, it shares many features of their decorative schemes. The emperor is accompanied in the main panel by a conquered barbarian in trousers at left, a crouching allegorical figure, probably representing territory conquered or reconquered, who holds his foot in thanks or submission, and an angel or victory, crowning the emperor with the traditional palm of victory (which is now lost). Although the barbarian is partly hidden by the emperor's huge spear, this does not pierce him, and he seems more astonished and over-awed than combative. Above, Christ, with a fashionable curled hair-style, is flanked by two more angels in the style of pagan victory figures; he reigns above, while the emperor represents him below on earth. In the bottom panel barbarians from West (left, in trousers) and East (right, with ivory tusks, a tiger and a small elephant) bring tribute, which includes wild animals. The figure in the left panel, representing a soldier, carries a statuette of Victory; his counterpart on the right is lost.

Rogier van der Weyden (Dutch: [roːˈɣiːr vɑn dər ˈʋɛidə(n)]; 1399 or 1400 – 18 June 1464), initially known as Roger de la Pasture (French: [ʁɔʒe d(ə) la pastyʁ]), was an early Netherlandish painter whose surviving works consist mainly of religious triptychs, altarpieces, and commissioned single and diptych portraits. He was highly successful in his lifetime; his paintings were exported to Italy and Spain, and he received commissions from, amongst others, Philip the Good, Netherlandish nobility, and foreign aristocrats. By the latter half of the 15th century, he had eclipsed Jan van Eyck in popularity. However his fame lasted only until the 17th century, and largely due to changing taste, he was almost totally forgotten by the mid-18th century. His reputation was slowly rebuilt during the 200 years that followed; today he is known, with Robert Campin and van Eyck, as the third (by birth date) of the three great Early Netherlandish artists (Vlaamse Primitieven or "Flemish Primitives"), and widely as the most influential Northern painter of the 15th century.

Very few details of van der Weyden's life are known. The few facts we know come from fragmentary civic records. Yet the attribution of paintings now associated to him is widely accepted, partly on the basis of circumstantial evidence, but primarily on the stylistic evidence of a number of paintings by an innovative master.

"Paris, Capital of the 19th Century" (German: Paris, Hauptstadt des 19. Jahrhunderts; 1938) is one of a diptych of completed essays that was composed during the preparatory outlining and drafting phase of Walter Benjamin's uncompleted composition of the Arcades Project. The Paris of the Second Empire in Baudelaire is its sister essay. The major themes of The Arcades Project—the construction of the Parisian arcades in the early 19th century, their blossoming as a habitat for the flâneur, their demolition during Haussmannization—appear as leitmotifs in both essays.

Paris, Capital of the 19th Century is a sketch or outline of the Arcades Project much in the same manner that Grundrisse was Karl Marx's outline for his intended eight volume masterwork Das Kapital of which he was only able to complete one volume. Whereas its sibling essay focuses on the poetry of Baudelaire as a microcosm for the full scope of ideas that Benjamin intended to address in the Arcades Project, the essays of Paris, Capital of the 19th Century attempt to cover the full spectrum of themes whose development was ultimately intended.

Early Netherlandish painting is the body of work by artists active in the Burgundian and Habsburg Netherlands during the 15th- and 16th-century Northern Renaissance period, once known as the Flemish Primitives. It flourished especially in the cities of Bruges, Ghent, Mechelen, Leuven, Tournai and Brussels, all in present-day Belgium. The period begins approximately with Robert Campin and Jan van Eyck in the 1420s and lasts at least until the death of Gerard David in 1523, although many scholars extend it to the beginning of the Dutch Revolt in 1566 or 1568 – Max J. Friedländer's acclaimed surveys run through Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Early Netherlandish painting coincides with the Early and High Italian Renaissance, but the early period (until about 1500) is seen as an independent artistic evolution, separate from the Renaissance humanism that characterised developments in Italy. Beginning in the 1490s, as increasing numbers of Netherlandish and other Northern painters traveled to Italy, Renaissance ideals and painting styles were incorporated into northern painting. As a result, Early Netherlandish painters are often categorised as belonging to both the Northern Renaissance and the Late or International Gothic.

The major Netherlandish painters include Campin, van Eyck, Rogier van der Weyden, Dieric Bouts, Petrus Christus, Hans Memling, Hugo van der Goes and Hieronymus Bosch. These artists made significant advances in natural representation and illusionism, and their work typically features complex iconography. Their subjects are usually religious scenes or small portraits, with narrative painting or mythological subjects being relatively rare. Landscape is often richly described but relegated as a background detail before the early 16th century. The painted works are generally oil on panel, either as single works or more complex portable or fixed altarpieces in the form of diptychs, triptychs or polyptychs. The period is also noted for its sculpture, tapestries, illuminated manuscripts, stained glass and carved retables.

The term monumental sculpture is often used in art history and criticism, but not always consistently. It combines two concepts, one of function, and one of size, and may include an element of a third more subjective concept. It is often used for all sculptures that are large. Human figures that are perhaps half life-size or above would usually be considered monumental in this sense by art historians, although in contemporary art a rather larger overall scale is implied. Monumental sculpture is therefore distinguished from small portable figurines, small metal or ivory reliefs, diptychs and the like.

The term is also used to describe sculpture that is architectural in function, especially if used to create or form part of a monument of some sort, and therefore capitals and reliefs attached to buildings will be included, even if small in size. Typical functions of monuments are as grave markers, tomb monuments or memorials, and expressions of the power of a ruler or community, to which churches and so religious statues are added by convention, although in some contexts monumental sculpture may specifically mean just funerary sculpture for church monuments.

In Late Antiquity, a consular diptych was a type of diptych intended as a de-luxe commemorative object. The diptychs were generally in ivory, wood or metal and decorated with rich relief sculpture. A consular diptych was commissioned by a consul ordinarius to mark his entry to that post, and was distributed as a commemorative reward to those who had supported his candidature or might support him in the future.