page_title: James Hampton (artist)
section_title: Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations' Millennium General Assembly
hierarchical_section_title: James Hampton (artist) / Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations' Millennium General Assembly
caption_attribution_description: English: The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations' Millennium General Assembly
context_page_description: James Hampton was an American outsider artist from Washington, D.C., who worked as a janitor and secretly built a large assemblage of religious art from scavenged materials known as the Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations' Millennium General Assembly, currently on display at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Art critic Robert Hughes of Time magazine wrote that the Throne "may well be the finest work of visionary religious art produced by an American."
context_section_description: In 1950, Hampton rented a garage on 7th street in northwest Washington. Over the next 14 years, Hampton built a complex work of religious art inside the garage with various scavenged materials such as aluminum and gold foil, old furniture, pieces of cardboard, light bulbs, jelly jars, shards of mirror and desk blotters held together with tacks, glue, pins and tape.
  The complete work consists of 180 objects, many of them inscribed with quotes from the Book of Revelation. The centerpiece of the exhibit is a throne, seven feet tall, built on the foundation of an old maroon-cushioned armchair with the words "Fear Not" at its crest. The throne is flanked by dozens of altars, crowns, lecterns, tablets and winged pulpits. Wall plaques on the left bear the name of apostles and those on the right list various biblical patriarchs and prophets such as Abraham and Ezekiel. The text The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations' Millennium General Assembly was written on the objects in Hampton's handwriting.
  Hampton described his work as a monument to Jesus in Washington. It was made based on several religious visions that prompted him to prepare for Christ's return to earth. Hampton wrote that God visited him often, that Moses appeared to him in 1931, the Virgin Mary in 1946, and Adam on the day of President Truman's inauguration in 1949. The term "third heaven" is based on scriptures that refer to it as the "heaven of heavens" or God's realm.
  The work is based on biblical prophecies of the millennium, including St. John's vision of God seated on a silver and gold throne surrounded by angels, references to Judgment Day, the crowns to be worn by the saved and other events described in Revelation. The work also has an affiliation with African-American yard shows as well as altars used in African-derived New World religions such as Vodou, Santería and Candomblé. Art critic Robert Farris Thompson describes the Throne as "a unique fusion of biblical and Afro-American traditional imagery."
  The work is associated with the American Millenarian and Dispensationalist movements of the 19th and 20th centuries. These movements divided the history of God's interactions with humanity into seven phases or dispensations, the last of which would be the "Millennium."
caption: Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations' Millennium General Assembly in the Smithsonian American Art Museum
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