Hellmouth
Sign in to savethumb|Miniature from the Hours of Catherine of Cleves, Morgan Library & Museum, MS M.945, f. 107r A Hellmouth, or the jaws of Hell, is the entrance to Hell envisaged as the gaping mouth of a huge monster, an image that first appeared in Anglo-Saxon art, and then spread all over Europe. It remained very common in depictions of the Last Judgment and Harrowing of Hell until the end of the Middle Ages, and was still sometimes used during the Renaissance and after. It enjoyed something of a revival in polemical popular prints after the Protestant Reformation, when figures from the opposite side wou
Article
10 sectionsContents
- History
- Association with Satan
- Association with Leviathan
- Association with Cerberus
- Decline of the motif in the Late Middle Ages
- Gallery
- Citations
- General references
- Further reading
- External links
thumb|Miniature from the Hours of Catherine of Cleves, Morgan Library & Museum, MS M.945, f. 107r A Hellmouth, or the jaws of Hell, is the entrance to Hell envisaged as the gaping mouth of a huge monster, an image that first appeared in Anglo-Saxon art, and then spread all over Europe. It remained very common in depictions of the Last Judgment and Harrowing of Hell until the end of the Middle Ages, and was still sometimes used during the Renaissance and after. It enjoyed something of a revival in polemical popular prints after the Protestant Reformation, when figures from the opposite side would be shown disappearing into the mouth. A notable late appearance is in the two versions of a painting by El Greco of about 1578. Political cartoons showed Napoleon leading his troops into one. thumb|Nuremberg, Saint Lawrence parish church: Western portal, 1340s
Medieval theatre often had a hellmouth prop or mechanical device that was used to attempt to scare the audience by vividly dramatizing an entrance to Hell. These seem often to have featured a battlemented castle entrance, in painting usually associated with Heaven.