Between Faith and Art: Representations of Heaven in the Italian Iconography of the Final Judgement

Abstract

ABSTRACT The life after death fascinated people of all epochs, but the consciousness of medieval people was particularly prone to this idea. It is almost impossible to understand the medieval homo religiosus, its mentality and actions, without taking into account the basic context of eschatology. The subject of analysis in this article is the iconography of heaven in the Italian representations of the Final Judgement at the turn of the Gothic and the Renaissance periods. Various representations of heaven are shown, such as Abraham’s bosom, garden of Eden, the heavenly city of Jerusalem and hierarchical community of the saved. The analysis of the works of art is confronted with theology. It permits the identification of sources and determining the theological meaning of individual iconographic themes. Such an analysis from the perspective of art history and theology reveals unique relationship between word and image, religion and culture, faith and art.