Last Judgment (detail)

The large receding rectangle of empty tombs creates the depth in the bottom half of this picture. An empty sarcophagus laid across it in the foreground subtly reduces the emphasis on this axis. Originally forming part of a seat, the complete picture extends to either side to show paradise and hell, but these scenes are thought to be by Angelico’s workshop. Beside the empty tombs stand the judged; the saved with radiant heads exit left to paradise; and demons drive the nimbus-less damned to the right, down to hell.

In the upper part of the panel Christ sits in jjudgment in a mandorla framed by a border of angels. On his right is the Virgin and on his left St John the Baptist. Beyond them on each side are two tiers of seated apostles and saints. The spatial depth of the terrestrial part of the picture is not maintained in the celestial half, the slight angling of the two banks of saints failing to give heaven the same illusion of depth.