Fra Angelico: Last Judgment
The Last Judgment done in 1435 by
Fra Angelico depicts the scene that God is making the judgment on the souls.
The scene on the panel takes place at the dawn, implicated by the varied sky color
from the deep blue on the top, full of shinning stars, to the white color at the
end of the road in the middle. The sky also cuts the painting into upper and
lower level; while, a long road to the vanishing point divides the lower level
into left and right two parts.
All figures shown in the painting
are simple and are in a natural sitting. Most of them face to the upper center,
which calls our attention to the one with the golden emanative ray around him sitting
in the center--- the Christ. He is looking down to the
lower level in a gesture with his right palm up and left hand downward. There
is a row of angles flying around him and in a relatively small size, compared
with the Christ. Three angles right down to the Christ hold horns with them,
and two of them bow their bodies to extend the horns to the lower level. Around
the angels are 28 Saints in different colors of mantles sitting on both right
and left sides to the Christ. Two among them sit closer to the Christ, showing their
specialness from
others, are the Virgin Mary in a pure white mantle on the left and the Baptists
St. John on the right.
Moving to the
lower level, Heaven on the right and Hell on the left are separated from each
other by a road with several black holes. The whole paradise is like a garden
with flowers everywhere. People near the road are looking upwards to God and
are praying in Zen gestures. Some people hugs with others and some are led into
the garden. In the garden, people are dancing in a circle composition. Everything
in Heaven shows the harmony. Far to the end of Heaven, two judged souls are
flying into a door with the golden outward ray, which connects to the ray
around God.
By contrast,
people in the other side stand back toward the road and are forced to Hell. By
the gesture with the up body forwards to the front and the feet stick on the
ground, the figures show their unwillingness to Hell. After getting in the door
of the hell, the whole space is divided into 5 horizontal levels. Different
from the big open space in Heaven, the figures are squeezed in a close space. The
whole space is on fire and people in each level are in different punishments. Moreover,
people in Hell, contrast to those in Heaven, are naked and some of them are
even tied by ropes. At the bottom
of Hell, a big Damn is eating people. The blood leading from his mouth and the pain
expressed on the faces of people in Damn’s hand engage viewers into the
horrible scene.
Angelico uses
several factors to connect the three parts in the painting. First, as discussed
above, the shinning ray from the door at far right in Heaven is related to the
ray around God. In addition, the horn extended to the lower level associates these
two levels. One more thing is the white light shown at the end of the road.
This is in relation to the white pigments under the Saints, which shows that
canonized people bring the light to everyone and each should be under a
judgment to their fates. The whole religious panel engages all the viewers to
the sacred moment. By showing the realistic torments in hell, viewers are persuaded
to behavior in a good manner to get into heaven.
Thank you for this
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