Paradise (1445), Giovanni di Paolo (1398–1482 Siena),
Tempera and gold on canvas, transferred from wood, Metropolitan Museum or Art
(New York) ■ Together with a scene of the Creation and Expulsion from Paradise,
also in the Metropolitan (Robert Lehman Collection), this picture formed the
base (or predella) of an altarpiece formerly in the church of San Domenico,
Siena, and now in the Uffizi, Florence. Painted in 1445, the two
predella paintings rank among the finest works by the artist. Groups of saints
and angels embrace in a rich, tapestry-like garden of Paradise. Giovanni di
Paolo was much inspired by paintings he saw in Florence by Fra Angelico, but he
rejected the perspectival rationalism of Florentine art in favor of a visionary
effect of exquisite intensity ■