The diptych is arranged not as a single narrative but as two different worlds on neighboring panels. On the left is the earthly chaos of the execution: a dense crowd, horses, armor, faces rendered with almost portrait-like precision. On the right is the strict vertical of the heavenly judgment, where the tiers of heaven and hell are divided by the figure of Death with outspread wings.
Van Eyck treats miniature as architecture: the detail holds the whole, and the scale of the crowd reads as well from a distance as it does up close.
