A triptych is a work in three panels meant to be read together — usually a central panel flanked by two side panels of equal or smaller size.
The form originates in late medieval altarpieces, where hinged side wings could be folded shut over the centre, and the structure carried a devotional logic: a central scene with attendant figures, saints, or related episodes on the wings. The format outlived its religious context and remains a recurring choice for any picture that wants its argument to unfold across a sequence rather than within a single field. Description of a triptych attends to how the three parts relate — narratively, formally, by colour, by scale — and to how the divisions between panels function: as breaks in the picture, as continuations across them, or as both at once.
See also
- panel — the unit a triptych is composed of
- framing — the bounding edges between and around the panels
- composition — the cross-panel arrangement a triptych asks for