THREAD: Problems depicting HEAVEN # 1: Overpopulation.
Renaissance painters attempted to depict the vast number of saved souls in heaven plus the hierarchy of angels. The result: heaven is depicted as overpopulated & cramped. Hellish
Correggio - Assumption of the Virgin (1522-30)

THREAD. Problems depicting HEAVEN # 2: Hierarchical Levels.
We might think of heaven as a place of equality, but St.Paul believed it had 3 levels. By the 2nd century many Christians believed there were 7 levels of heaven & by the middle ages it became 10 heavens of Dante Aligheri

THREAD. Problems depicting HEAVEN # 3: The Gates. It has proved easier to depict the Twelve Pearly Gates than to depict Heaven itself. The ineffable paradise that lies beyond - a place "filled with peace, joy and grace" is barely described in in the Bible & rarely depicted in art

THREAD: Problems depicting HEAVEN # 4. Angels don't have wings anywhere in the Bible. They are artistic license used to depict higher beings from higher realms and also to distinguish angels from humans in paintings.

The Hand of God. God, personified in human form in Western Art, did not appear till the 10th century. Prior to that God was represented as a disembodied hand or not at all. The Hand of God as an artistic metaphor was imported from Jewish art. Examples date from the 3rd C.

THREAD: problems depicting heaven # 6. Lack of description. In the bible the contents of Heaven include a foundations of jewels, a fountain, a river, 25 thrones, a tree, a rainbow, a blinding light & a place with many rooms where people wear white.
Blake: Jacob's ladder.