An inferno, a frozen lake: many visions of the suffering city have burnt into western culture. The latest, however, depicts a different revelation; rather than an underworld kingdom of misery, hell is found in human brutality.

Name of artefact: Hell, also known as Fucking Hell, by Jake and Dinos Chapman.

Currently available: As part of a Chapman Brothers retrospective: 1 October 2003 – 14 March 2004 at the Saatchi Gallery, South Bank, London. £8 entrance fee: concessions available.

Tell us about the artists: First things first, the Chapman brothers are actual 'of-the-same-mother' brothers. 'Chapman Brothers' is not some post-modern BritArt name for a group of artists that went to Goldsmiths during the early 1990s.

Dinos Chapman was born in 1962 and studied at Ravensbourne College of Art. Jake, four years his junior, went to North East London Polytechnic. In 1990, both brothers achieved an MA from the Royal College of Art – a place that still believes drawing is important.

When they finished their Piccadilly-orientated student life, they worked together as assistants for Gilbert and George, the East End duo that model themselves as self-styled living works of art. However, in 1993, Jake and Dinos decided to leave and start their own studio. The boys work almost exclusively in collaboration with each other and were short-listed for this year's Turner Prize but lost to a guy who made pots.

In all their interviews, Jake does most of the talking, usually in rather obscure language, and interviewers appear to have a tricky time trying to follow what he says. Whether Jake has a high IQ or is just incomprehensible is another matter – the brothers are known as intellectuals. Why this is surprising to many of their interviewers seems to say a lot about the state of the contemporary British art scene.

However, when well-educated people go to see a Chapman piece, they suddenly click into Daily Mail mode and lose the ability to use words outside of a small band of clichés. So the brothers become "controversial", "shock artists", "enfants terribles" and "taboo breakers" who spend their time "dreaming up the nation's nightmares". Even Robert Hughes – the Steven Spielberg of art criticism – defaulted and called them "twerps".

A brief description of the work: Taking two years to make, Hell is a set of nine glass display cases, each carefully placed to form the overall layout of a swastika. Inside each case, or terrarium, is a landscape with tiny trees, hills and rocks – the sort bought from model shops to decorate Hornby train sets. 5,000 miniature figures, all individually cast and hand-painted, populate each scene.

These nine landscapes invoke cinematic and televisual images of Vietnam, the Second World War and mass genocide, depicting the horrors of modern warfare and reminding the viewer of films such as Bridge over the River Kwai, Apocalypse Now and The Killing Fields.

Yet, when you look a little closer, you wonder who is actually in control of slaughter in these scenes. As skeletal horsemen harangue prison guards and prisoners kill soldiers, the Chapman Brothers trademark – two-headed, three-legged naked figures – both terrorise and suffer the violence of others. Indeed, these scenes depict hell rather than recognisable re-enactments of recent war crimes, and the overall vision is one that Hieronymus Bosch would surely recognise.

What is it really about: What is shocking about Hell is how easily we recognise the scenes. We've been here before; we think we know the plot and how it will end. We believe the British will triumph over those Germans/Japanese/soldiers in big helmets, the bridge will be blown up and evil will be avenged. We believe there is hope and, if we had been in similar circumstances, we know we would have stood up against all the wickedness portrayed here in miniature.

Yet the closer inspection confuses us. Who is who? Where do we really fit into these scenes?

Time Out, the sponsors of the retrospective, claim the Chapmans have created a "detached experience of watching real evil through the compact window of a television screen", placing the viewer "in the position of ruthless gods, looking on with awe and wonder at the destruction they've willed".

I would like to think this interpretation is true, as it seems so neat. Yet a ruthless god would have power to intervene whereas we, the viewers, are not given this opportunity – there is too much glass in the way. Unlike a train-set, we cannot reach in and save those diminutive torture victims even if we willed it.

And this is not dissimilar to the helplessness felt in times of war. 24-hour news broadcasting gives us the ability to watch, feel horrified and do nothing. Yes, in 2003, the indignation of millions of citizens drove them to march against the war in Iraq. However, I suspect that each of those marchers sincerely believed they would always be on the side of the victim, they would never succumb to becoming a dictator's foot soldier with thousands of deaths dripping off their hands. But how else do atrocities occur?

The Chapman Brothers' Hell reminds us not only that humanity can be repulsive and depraved, but also that we, as individuals, can become either victim or perpetrator of brutality and sadism. Hell warns us of the ease of these two possibilities.

You'll appreciate this if . . . You are really fed up with the BritArt of the 1990s and want something more insightful. Not that all the Chapman Brothers' work has the quality of Hell – as with most artists, they have good and bad work – but, although their ideas are unusual, the duo's work should not be simply dismissed as "shocking".

Again, their attempts to reveal some of the hypocrisies they see in the world around them makes for thought-provoking art, even if you do not "like" – as in, you would love to find space for it in your home/garden/safe – the work on view.

You won't like this . . . If you agree with the following statements made by viewers of the Turner Prize this year:

"Fake + DENOS Chapman fruitless children on the backward road to emptiyness [sic]"
JC, 19/12/2003

"I generally hated/disliked all the art works, bored with horror though visually attracted by Chapman Bros Maggot sculpture, is just eye candy – no depth – nothing to say."
Joe, 18/12/2003

Why not also take a look at . . . Hell and Ship of Fools by Hieronymus Bosch, 3 May 1808 and Disasters of War by Francisco de Goya, Guernica by Pablo Picasso, BBC News 24, Sky News, CNN.