The ROUEN 1431 Panorama addresses the late Gothic era and the start of the Early Modern period. Rather than depicting this period as a time of darkness and backwardness, Yadegar Asisi paints the late Gothic around 1431 as an era of upheaval and reorientation towards the individual.

The blossoming city of Rouen on the Seine shows citizens, craftsmen, farmers, clerics, knights and nobles going about their daily business. The Gothic cathedral, whose Butter Tower completes the cityscape, symbolises the radiant church architecture of the time and shines a light into the apocalyptic darkness of the Middle Ages.

The depiction of the historical figure Joan of Arc is also used to represent the Hundred Years’ War between France and England. Broad swathes of France were controlled by the English in the 15th century until Joan of Arc's troops turned the tides of the war in France’s favour, at which point the saint was betrayed and condemned to die. She was burned at the stake in 1431. France’s national hero is shown in various scenes and stations in the Panorama on the path to her execution.

With ROUEN 1431, Asisi has brought together people and places that in reality did not live at the same time and were not at the same location into a single Panorama. The interweaving narrative elements in the Panorama nevertheless form a harmonious whole that tells a story about a place at a certain time.