polyptych

A polyptych (from the Greek polu- "many" + ptychē "fold") generally refers to a painting (usually panel painting) which is divided into four or more sections, or panels. (The term diptych is used to describe a two-part painting and the term triptych describes a three-part painting.)

Polyptychs were most common with Renaissance painters, the majority of polyptychs were designed to be altarpieces in churches and cathedrals. The form was also quite popular among ukiyo-e printmakers of Edo period Japan.

Examples of polyptychs include:

• The Ghent Altarpiece is probably the most famous polyptych
• Polyptych of the Misericordia (1445–1462) by Piero della Francesca
• The Last Judgment Polyptych (c. 1450) by Rogier van der Weyden
• Saint Augustine Polyptych (1470) by Perugino
• The Demidoff Altarpiece (1476), by Carlo Crivelli, demonstrates the painter's preferred style of altarpiece
• St. Dominic Polyptych (1506–08) by Lorenzo Lotto

In comic books and comic strips a polyptych is a strip, or even an entire comic page, in which the background forms a continuous image even though it may be divided into separate panels; a good example is The Perishers, which often uses polyptychs divided into three panels.

In the video game Bioshock, Sander Cohen refers to his "masterpiece" as a quadtych. The portraits, however are held up by plaster models, rather than being in successive hinged panels, or in a comic book like 'strip'.

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