Thursday, April 17, 2014

103











Glorifying the soul with Giotto and his Last Judgement at the Arena Chapel (Cappella Scrovegni), c. 1306, in Padua, takes you to the garden of the heart. The blue in the existent chapel takes you there, to the garden where the angels live. The trumpeting angels of the end of time nominate the beginning of the world to come. The infinite love of God. Hell demons seem to be spun off in Hell fire off the side of the sacred serpent Christ rides around in, in Heaven. The Hell victims are being beaten, hung on trees and munched on by a big, blue Satan sitting on some other kind of serpent. It is hard to imagine why the order of St. Anthony that this painting is attributed to appears to represent evil to certain unsaintly bloodlines. The pictorial story on view seems to suggest Heaven and Hell exists on earth and come Glory day where we are judged for our eternal life, the angels come down and pray. Some people have been ascended to the Heaven on High and seem to crowd the Heavens like a Choral Choir in neat rows singing the verse. While other angels surround Christ on his magical chair of the sacred serpent and appear resplendent, the angels of the cross hover over a sacred service below.