Besides being an inveterate art lover, Barbara De Coninck has been a passionate ornithophile all her life. Each month, she writes about her experience of birding from the perspective of art (and vice versa).
The panel The Blessed on their Way to Heaven1 by Flemish master Dieric Bouts (ca. 1410—1475) depicts an angel leading a party of faithful disciples along a carpet of greenery with paradise in sight. This group of mortals consists of three men and three young women who are the very picture of beauty. The angel offers one of the men something. An arm, perhaps. Do angels even have arms? Bouts paints the angel from behind; his face is not visible to us. We have a view of his neck and the back of his head, which is topped with a spherical golden cap. Two enormous wings can be seen protruding, like broomsti…
