Fra Angelico

Fra Angelico
Early Renaissance
Patron(s)	Cosimo de' Medici Pope Eugene IV Pope Nicholas V
Signature

Fra Angelico, OP (born Guido di Pietro; c. 1395

He was known to contemporaries as Fra Giovanni da Fiesole (Friar John of Fiesole) and Fra Giovanni Angelico (Angelic Brother John). In modern Italian he is called Beato Angelico (Blessed Angelic One);^[4] the common English name Fra Angelico means the "Angelic friar".

In 1982,

Vasari wrote of Fra Angelico that "it is impossible to bestow too much praise on this holy father, who was so humble and modest in all that he did and said and whose pictures were painted with such facility and piety."[2]

Biography

Early life, 1395–1436

Fra Angelico was born Guido di Pietro in the hamlet of

According to Vasari, Fra Angelico's initial training was as an

In 1436, Fra Angelico was one of a number of the friars from Fiesole who moved to the newly built convent or friary of San Marco in Florence. This propitious move, placing him at the heart of artistic life of the region, attracted the backing of Cosimo de' Medici. He was one of the wealthiest and most powerful members of the city's governing authority (or "Signoria"), and founder of the dynasty that was set to dominate Florentine politics for much of the Renaissance. Cosimo had a cell reserved for himself at the friary so that he might retreat from the world. It was, writes Vasari, at Cosimo's urging that Fra Angelico set about the task of decorating the convent, including the magnificent fresco of the Chapter House, the much reproduced Annunciation at the top of the stairs leading to the cells, the Maesta (or Coronation of the Madonna) with Saints (cell 9), and many other devotional frescoes, smaller in format but of a remarkable luminous quality, depicting aspects of the Life of Christ that adorn the walls of each cell.^[2]

In 1439 Fra Angelico completed one of his most famous works, the

The Vatican, 1445–1455

In 1445

Cathedral. Among his other pupils were Zanobi Strozzi.^[14]

From 1447 to 1449 Fra Angelico was back at the Vatican, designing the frescoes for the

St. Lawrence may have been executed wholly or in part by assistants. The small chapel, with its brightly frescoed walls and gold leaf decorations gives the impression of a jewel box. From 1449 until 1452, Fra Angelico was back at his old convent of Fiesole, where he was the Prior.^[2][15]

Death and beatification

In 1455, Fra Angelico died while staying at a Dominican convent in Rome, perhaps on an order to work on Pope Nicholas' chapel. He was buried in the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva.^[2][15][16]

When singing my praise, don't liken my talents to those of Apelles.
Say, rather, that, in the name of Christ, I gave all I had to the poor.

The deeds that count on Earth are not the ones that count in Heaven.

I, Giovanni, am the flower of Tuscany.

— Translation of epitaph^[2]

Apelles (see main article) was a highly renowned painter of Ancient Greece, whose output, now completely lost, is thought to have centred chronologically around 330 BCE.

On display near the main altar is a marble tombstone, an exceptional honour for an artist at that time. Two epitaphs were written, probably by Lorenzo Valla. The first reads: "In this place is enshrined the glory, the mirror, and the ornament of painters, John the Florentine. A religious and a true servant of God, he was a brother of the holy Order of Saint Dominic. His disciples mourn the death of such a great master, for who will find another brush like his? His homeland and his order mourn the death of a distinguished painter, who had no equal in his art." Inside a Renaissance style niche is the painter's relief in Dominican habit. A second epitaph reads: "Here lies the venerable painter Brother John of the Order of Preachers. May I be praised not because I looked like another Apelles, but because I have offered to you, O Christ, all my wealth. For some, their works survive on earth; for others in heaven. The city of Florence gave birth to me, John."

The English writer and critic William Michael Rossetti wrote of the friar:

From various accounts of Fra Angelico's life, it is possible to gain some sense of why he was deserving of canonization. He led the devout and ascetic life of a Dominican friar, and never rose above that rank; he followed the dictates of the order in caring for the poor; he was always good-humored. All of his many paintings were of divine subjects, and it seems that he never altered or retouched them, perhaps from a religious conviction that, because his paintings were divinely inspired, they should retain their original form. He was wont to say that he who illustrates the acts of Christ should be with Christ. It is averred that he never handled a brush without fervent prayer and he wept when he painted a Crucifixion.

The Last Judgment and the Annunciation were two of the subjects he most frequently treated.^[17][15]

Pope John Paul II beatified Fra Angelico on 3 October 1982, and in 1984 declared him patron of Catholic artists.[5]

Angelico was reported to say "He who does Christ's work must stay with Christ always". This motto earned him the epithet "Blessed Angelico", because of the perfect integrity of his life and the almost divine beauty of the images he painted, to a superlative extent those of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

— Pope John Paul II

Evaluation

Background

Fra Angelico was working at a time when the style of painting was in a state of flux. This transformation had begun a century earlier with the works of

If not a monastic establishment, the patron was most usually, as part of a church's endowment, a family with wealth. To maximally advertise this (wealth) favoured subjects where religious devotion would be most focused, an altarpiece for instance. The wealthier the benefactor, the more the style would seem a throwback, compared with a freer and more nuanced style then in vogue. Underpinning this was that a commissioned painting said something about its sponsor: the more gold leaf, the more prestige accrued. Other precious materials in the paint-box were lapis lazuli and vermilion. Paints from these colours lent themselve poorly to a tonal treatment. The azure blue made of powdered lapis lazuli had to be applied flat. As with gold leaf, it was left to the depth and brilliance of colour to announce the patron's importance. This, however, constrained the overall style to that of an earlier generation. Thus, the impression left by altarpieces was more conservative than that achieved by frescoes. These, in contrast, were frequently of almost life-sized figures. To gain effect, they could capitalise on an up-to-date stage-set quality rather than having to fall back upon a lavish, but dated, display.^[18]

Contemporaries

Fra Angelico was the contemporary of

The works of Fra Angelico reveal elements that are both conservatively Gothic and progressively Renaissance. In the altarpiece of the Coronation of the Virgin, painted for the Florentine church of Santa Maria Novella, are all the elements that a very expensive altarpiece of the 14th century was expected to provide; a precisely tooled gold ground, much azure, and much vermilion. The workmanship of the gilded haloes and gold-edged robes is exquisite and all very Gothic. What makes this a Renaissance painting, as against Gentile da Fabriano's masterpiece, is the solidity, three-dimensionality and naturalism of the figures and the realistic way in which their garments hang or drape around them. Even though it is clouds these figures stand upon, and not the earth, they do so with weight.^[13]

Frescoes

The series of

When Fra Angelico and his assistants went to the Vatican to decorate the chapel of Pope Nicholas, the artist was again confronted with the need to please the very wealthiest of clients. In consequence, walking into the small chapel is like stepping into a jewel box. The walls are decked with the brilliance of colour and gold that one sees in the most lavish creations of the Gothic painter Simone Martini at the Lower Church of St Francis of Assisi, a hundred years earlier. Yet Fra Angelico has succeeded in creating designs which continue to reveal his own preoccupation with humanity, with humility and with piety. The figures, in their lavish gilded robes, have the sweetness and gentleness for which his works are famous. According to Vasari:

In their bearing and expression, the saints painted by Fra Angelico come nearer to the truth than the figures done by any other artist.^[2]

It is probable that much of the actual painting was done by his assistants to his design. Both Benozzo Gozzoli and Gentile da Fabriano were highly accomplished painters. Benozzo took his art further towards the fully developed Renaissance style with his expressive and lifelike portraits in his masterpiece depicting the

Artistic legacy

Through Fra Angelico's pupil Benozzo Gozzoli's careful portraiture and technical expertise in the art of fresco we see a link to Domenico Ghirlandaio, who in turn painted extensive schemes for the wealthy patrons of Florence, and through Ghirlandaio to his pupil Michelangelo and the High Renaissance.

Apart from the lineal connection, superficially there may seem little to link the humble priest with his sweetly pretty

When Michelangelo took up the Sistine Chapel commission, he was working within a space that had already been extensively decorated by other artists. Around the walls the Life of Christ and Life of Moses were depicted by a range of artists including his teacher

Early works, 1408–1436

Unknown

• Saint James and Saint Lucy Predella, five panels, tempera, c. 1426 to 1428

Rome

• The Crucifixion, panel, c. 1420–1423, Metropolitan Museum, New York.^[20] Possibly Fra Angelico's only signed work.^[21]

Cortona

• Annunciation
  , c. 1430, Diocesan Museum, Cortona

Fiesole

• Coronation of the Virgin, altarpiece with predellas of Miracles of
  St Dominic, Church of San Domenico, Louvre, Paris
• Virgin and Child between Saints Thomas Aquinas, Barnabas, Dominic and Peter Martyr, San Domenico, 1424
• National Gallery, London
  .

Florence,

Basilica di San Marco

• Dormition of the Virgin, 1431^[22]

Florence, Santa Trinita

• Deposition of Christ, said by Vasari to have been "painted by a saint or an angel", National Museum of San Marco
  , Florence.
• Coronation of the Virgin, c. 1432, Uffizi, Florence
• Coronation of the Virgin, c. 1434–1435, Louvre, Paris

Florence, Santa Maria degli Angeli

• Accademia, Florence

Florence, Santa Maria Novella

• Coronation of the Virgin, altarpiece, Uffizi.

San Marco, Florence, 1436–1445

• Altarpiece for chancel – Virgin with Saints Cosmas and Damian, attended by Saints Dominic, Peter, Francis, Mark, John Evangelist and Stephen. Cosmas and Damian were patrons of the Medici. The altarpiece was commissioned in 1438 by Cosimo de' Medici. It was removed and disassembled during the renovation of the convent church in the seventeenth century. Two of the nine predella panels remain at the convent; seven are in Washington, Munich, Dublin and Paris. Unexpectedly, in 2006 the last two missing panels, Dominican saints from the side panels, turned up in the estate of a modest collector in Oxfordshire, who had bought them in California in the 1960s.^[23]

San Marco

, Florence

• Altarpiece ? – Madonna and Child with Twelve Angels (life sized); Uffizi.
• Altarpiece – The Annunciation
• San Marco Altarpiece
• Two versions of the Crucifixion with St Dominic; in the Cloister
• Very large Crucifixion with Virgin and 20 Saints; in the Chapter House
• The Annunciation; at the top of the Dormitory stairs. This is probably the most reproduced of all Fra Angelico's paintings.
• Virgin Enthroned with Four Saints; in the Dormitory passage

Each cell is decorated with a fresco which matches in size and shape of the single round-headed window beside it. The frescoes are apparently for contemplative purposes. They have a pale, serene, unearthly beauty. Many of Fra Angelico's finest and most reproduced works are among them. There are, particularly in the inner row of cells, some of the less inspiring quality and of the more repetitive subject, perhaps completed by assistants.^[13] Many pictures include Dominican saints as witnesses of the scene each in one of the nine traditional prayer postures depicted in De Modo Orandi. The friar using the cell could place himself in the scene.

• The Adoration of the Magi
• The Transfiguration
• Noli me tangere
• The
  Three Marys
  at the Tomb.
• The
  Road to Emmaus
  , with two Dominicans as the disciples
• The Mocking of Christ
• There are many versions of the Crucifixion

Late works, 1445–1455

Orvieto Cathedral

Three segments of the ceiling in the Cappella Nuova, with the assistance of Benozzo Gozzoli.

• Christ in Glory
• The Virgin Mary
• The Apostles

Niccoline Chapel

The Chapel of Pope Nicholas V, at the Vatican, was probably painted with much assistance from Benozzo Gozzoli and Gentile da Fabriano. The entire surface of the wall and ceiling is sumptuously painted. There is much gold leaf for borders and decoration, and a great use of brilliant blue made from lapis lazuli.

• The Life of
  St Stephen
• The Life of
  St Lawrence
• The Four Evangelists.

Discovery of lost works

Worldwide press coverage reported in November 2006 that two missing masterpieces by Fra Angelico had turned up, having hung in the spare room of the late Jean Preston, in her terrace house in Oxford, England. Her father had bought them for £100 each in the 1960s then bequeathed them to her when he died.^[24] Preston, an expert medievalist, recognised them as being high-quality Florentine renaissance, but did not realize that they were works by Fra Angelico until they were identified in 2005 by Michael Liversidge of Bristol University.^[25] There was almost no demand at all for medieval art during the 1960s and no dealers showed any interest, so Preston's father bought them almost as an afterthought along with some manuscripts. The paintings are two of eight side panels of a large altarpiece painted in 1439 for Fra Angelico's monastery at San Marco, which was later split up by Napoleon's army. While the centre section is still at the monastery, the other six small panels are in German and US museums. These two panels were presumed lost forever. The Italian Government had hoped to purchase them but they were outbid at auction on 20 April 2007 by a private collector for £1.7M.^[24] Both panels are now restored and exhibited in the San Marco Museum in Florence.

See also

• List of Italian painters
• List of famous Italians
• Early Renaissance painting
• Poor Man's Bible
• Fray Angelico Chavez – Franciscan friar, historian and artist who was named after Fra Angelico due to his interest in painting
• Western painting

Footnotes

1. ^ "Metropolitan Museum of Art".
2. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h i j} Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the Artists. Penguin Classics, 1965.
3. ISBN 978-0-19-869137-2
   .
4. ^ Andrea del Sarto, Raphael and Michelangelo were all called "Beato" by their contemporaries because their skills were seen as a special gift from God
5. ^
   ISBN 0-87973-934-7
   .
6. ^ Rossetti 1911, p. 6.
7. ISBN 88-209-7210-7
8. ^ "Comune di Vicchio (Firenze), La terra natale di Giotto e del Beato Angelico". zoomedia. Retrieved 2007-09-28.
9. ^ Werner Cohn, Il Beato Angelico e Battista di Biagio Sanguigni. Revista d'Arte, V, (1955): 207–221.
10. ^ Stefano Orlandi, Beato Angelico; Monographia Storica della Vita e delle Opere con Un'Appendice di Nuovi Documenti Inediti. Florence: Leo S. Olschki Editore, 1964.
11. ^ Rossetti 1911, pp. 6–7.
12. ^ "Gherardo Starnina". Artists. Getty Center. Archived from the original on 2007-09-26. Retrieved 2007-09-28.Getty Education[]
13. ^
    ISBN 0-500-23136-2
14. The National Gallery, London. Archived from the original
    on 2007-10-14. Retrieved 2007-09-28.
15. ^ ^{a b c} Rossetti, William Michael (as attributed) (18 March 2016). "Fra Angelico". orderofpreachersindependent.org. Retrieved 1 May 2016.
16. ^ The tomb has been given greater visibility since the beatification.
17. ^ Rossetti 1911, p. 7.
18. ISBN 0-19-881329-5
19. ISBN 0-500-23729-8
20. ^ The Crucifixion in the online databank of the MET.
21. ^ Ross Finocchio in an essay on Fra Angelico at The Met's Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History in 2006.
22. ^ "Dormition of the Virgin". on WikiArt.org
23. ^ "San Marco Altarpiece". Web Gallery of Art. Retrieved 2014-05-29.
24. ^ ^{a b} Morris, Steven (20 April 2007). "Lost altar masterpieces found in spare bedroom fetch £1.7m". The Guardian. Retrieved 2007-09-28.
25. ^ Morris, Steven (14 November 2006). "A £1m art find behind the spare room door". The Guardian. Retrieved 2007-09-28.

References

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Rossetti, William Michael (1911). "Angelico, Fra". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 2 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 6–8. Rossetti's article includes an assessment of the body of work, from the pre-Raphaelite viewpoint.
• ISBN 978-0-300-05734-8
• Morachiello, Paolo. Fra Angelico: The San Marco Frescoes. Thames and Hudson, 1990.
  ISBN 0-500-23729-8
• ISBN 0-500-23136-2
• Giorgio Vasari. Lives of the Artists. first published 1568. Penguin Classics, 1965.
• Donald Attwater. The Penguin Dictionary of Saints. Penguin Reference Books, 1965.
• Luciano Berti. Florence, the city and its Art. Bercocci, 1979.
• Werner Cohn. Il Beato Angelico e Battista di Biagio Sanguigni. Revista d'Arte, V, (1955): 207–221.
• Stefano Orlandi. Beato Angelico; Monographia Storica della Vita e delle Opere con Un'Appendice di Nuovi Documenti Inediti. Florence: Leo S. Olschki Editore, 1964.

Further reading

• Nathaniel Silver (ed.), Fra Angelico: Heaven of Earth, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston 2018
• Gerardo de Simone, Il Beato Angelico a Roma. Rinascita delle arti e Umanesimo cristiano nell'Urbe di Niccolò V e Leon Battista Alberti, Fondazione Carlo Marchi, Studi, vol. 34, Olschki, Firenze 2017
• Cyril Gerbron, Fra Angelico. Liturgie et mémoire (= Études Renaissantes, 18), Brepols Publishers, Turnhout 2016.
  ISBN 978-2-503-56769-3
  ;
• Gerardo de Simone, "La bottega di un frate pittore: il Beato Angelico tra Fiesole, Firenze e Roma", in Revista Diálogos Mediterrânicos, n. 8, Curitiba (Brasil) 2015, ISSN 2237-6585, pp. 48–85 – http://www.dialogosmediterranicos.com.br/index.php/RevistaDM
• Gerardo de Simone, "Fra Angelico: perspectives de recherche, passées et futures", in Perspective, la revue de l'INHA. Actualités de la recherche en histoire de l'art, 1/2013, pp. 25–42
• Gerardo de Simone, "Velut alter Iottus. Il Beato Angelico e i suoi 'profeti trecenteschi'", in 1492. Rivista della Fondazione Piero della Francesca, 2, 2009 (2010), pp. 41–66
• Gerardo de Simone, "L'Angelico di Pisa. Ricerche e ipotesi intorno al Redentore benedicente del Museo Nazionale di San Matteo", in Polittico, Edizioni Plus – Pisa University Press, 5, Pisa 2008, pp. 5–35
• Gerardo de Simone, "L'ultimo Angelico. Le "Meditationes" del cardinal Torquemada e il ciclo perduto nel chiostro di S. Maria sopra Minerva", in Ricerche di Storia dell'Arte, Carocci Editore, Roma 2002, pp. 41–87
• Creighton Gilbert, How Fra Angelico and Signorelli Saw the End of the World, Penn State Press, 2002
  ISBN 0-271-02140-3
• John T. Spike, Angelico, New York 1997.
• ISBN 0-226-14813-0
  Discussion of how Fra Angelico challenged Renaissance naturalism and developed a technique to portray "unfigurable" theological ideas.
• J. B. Supino, Fra Angelico, Alinari Brothers, Florence, undated, from Project Gutenberg

External links

Wikisource has the text of a 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article about Fra Angelico.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Fra Angelico.

• Fra Angelico – Painter of the Early Renaissance
• Fra Angelico in the "History of Art" Archived 2012-02-25 at the Wayback Machine
• Ross Finocchio, Robert Lehman Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
• Fra Angelico Exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, (October 26, 2005 – January 29, 2006).
• "Soul Eyes" Archived 2008-12-03 at the
  The Nation
  , (January 19, 2006).
• Fra Angelico, Catherine Mary Phillimore, (Sampson Low, Marston & Co., 1892)
• Frescoes and paintings gallery Archived 2016-03-04 at the Wayback Machine
• Italian Paintings: Florentine School, a collection catalog containing information about the artist and his works (see pages: 77–82).