The Judgment Day

Aaron Douglas painted _The Judgment Day _in 1939, more than a decade after creating the book illustration on which the painting is based. In 1927 Douglas had provided eight strikingly original illustrations for a collection of poems titled _God’s Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse_ by James Weldon Johnson. Executed in a style that reflected the influence of German émigré Fritz Winold Reiss (American, 1888 - 1953), Douglas’s artistic mentor, as well as the artist’s own study of African art and European modernism, the illustrations marked the advent of Douglas’s mature style. Over a period of several years, Douglas translated his original book illustrations into large oil paintings. _The Judgment Day_ is the final painting in the series.

At the center of the composition, a powerful black Gabriel stands astride earth and sea. With trumpet call, the archangel summons the living and the dead to judgment. Recasting both the biblical narrative and the visual vocabulary of art deco and cubism, Douglas created an image as racially impassioned as the sermons of the black preachers celebrated in _God’s Trombones._