Fra Angelico 10/12

On the 18th of each month I'm posting a painting by Fra Angelico that I've seen to celebrate his feast day. For October I've chosen 'The Last Judgement' altarpiece from the Gemaldegalerie in Berlin that I saw a month or so ago for the first time.

It would benefit from a cleaning which would make it sparkle and gleam like the version in Rome but it's still an astonishing sight just as it is. In particular, I liked the ranks of angels in the painting.

The middle panel of the altarpiece shows Christ in judgement while the panels on either side show angels escorting the blessed to Heaven and, on the other, sinners in various punishments in hell. I'm quite partial to the angels in the left-hand panel performing a stately dance with the blessed friars and monks being danced towards Heaven.

The Dominicans dominate in terms of numbers in the painting, as they would with the good Fra being a Dominican himself, as they move through paradise towards the golden Heaven above. The angels' robes are gorgeous  and their wings are multicoloured (as are all angel wings, as the Fra would know). They also brighten up the rather dull robes of the friars and monks.

I'd love to know enough about the flora at the time to know which flowers are shown in paradise - they will be real flowers and will, no doubt, have a meaning like purity or wisdom or something.

The other group of angels I particularly like are those at the bottom left of the main panel, greeting the blessed and the saved and leading them towards the angels dancing to Heaven. I like the intimacy of these angels with their arms around the saved, cuddling them, escorting them almost as equals towards Heaven.  I think this is lovely and something I've not seen in paintings by other artists.

The Fra was inventing new ways to depict traditional subjects that had been painted loads of times - and he will have seen loads of versions of the Last Judgement in Florence - and trying to come up with a new way of showing them, a human way to better engage the viewer. On that final day I wouldn't want to stand aghast at the sight of angels, I'd want them to welcome me with open arms and that's what the Fra is doing here.

It really is an astonishing paint8ing when you start looking at the details and start wondering about it. If you ever get to Berlin then you could do a lot worse than go to the Gemaldegalerie and see this glorious altarpiece and the other amazing works in the gallery.