The first artist employed to decorate its walls was Fra Angelico. “Famous above all Italian painters,” stated the contract he signed around 1447. Unfortunately, so beloved was this painter by Pope Nicolas V, that he was forced to stop painting after completing only two paintings on the vault: The Christ in Judgment and Angels and Prophets. I overheard a guide telling her group that, while people don’t come to the chapel to see these works by Fra Angelico, over the years she has come to feel they are superior to the more famous ones by Luca Signorelli. She told her captive audience about a time during the restoration of the frescoes, when guides were allowed to climb up the scaffolding nearly to the ceiling. “And the details were perfect,” she said. “Signorelli painted to impress the people standing on the ground, while Angelico painted for God’s eyes.”
Though unable to get any closer than where I was standing, feet firmly on the ground, still from where I stood, I could understand what she meant. Angelico’s paintings exude a peaceful tranquility in what is an otherwise pretty disturbing space. With Christ depicted as Judge in the Byzantine Pantocrator fashion, he seated on a cloud and crowned with a nimbus halo. “Ruler of All” and “Sustainer of the World,” he is surrounded by angels.
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