In Tuesday’s class, we finished our discussion on the Portinari Altarpiece and began our discussion on the many layers of the Insenheim Altarpiece. I found the Insenheim Altarpiece to be refreshing because although Grünewald echoed some of the iconography and style choices of some of the more typical Italian Renaissance art we have seen, his style, as we discussed, is mostly Germanic. I was particularly interested in this aspect of the art considering its place of origin in Alsace, which historically has had a mixture of French and German cultures/languages. One of the parts of our discussion that particularly struck my interest was the portrayal of skin disease and decomposing flesh in the painting, specifically because it was shown in both Jesus’ flesh wounds, and Lucifer’s rotting hands and green skin. Jesus’ suffering is portrayed as a skin disease, which makes sense to me, as the patrons of the monastery could be comforted by Jesus’ sacrifice and his eventual “pain-free” rebirth. However, juxtaposing it is Lucifer’s decomposition, which my only guess would be based on the belief that disease came to those who had sinned as a punishment, much like the plague.