Fra Angelico
Fra Giovanni da Fiesole, known posthumously as Fra Angelico, was a Dominican friar and painter active during the early Florentine Renaissance.
Angelico created a series of frescoes for the Dominican convent of San Marco in Florence, where he received the patronage of Cosimo de' Medici. His works include the San Marco Altarpiece and the Deposition of Christ, both made for the convent of San Marco. Painting exclusively religious subjects throughout his career, Angelico completed commissions in Rome under the patronage of Popes Eugene IV and Nicholas V. Angelico was a pioneer of the artistic trends that came to distinguish the early Renaissance, namely linear perspective and a greater attention to depth and form than had been practised in the late Medieval period.
Angelico was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1982. In 1984, John Paul declared him the patron of Catholic artists.
Biography
He was known to his contemporaries as Fra Giovanni da Fiesole, reflecting the town where he joined the Dominican order, and Fra Giovanni Angelico. In modern Italian, he is referred to as Beato Angelico following his beatification by Pope John Paul II.Early life, 1395–1436
Fra Angelico was born around 1395 in Mugello, near Fiesole in Tuscany. He was baptised Guido di Pietro and had a younger brother named Benedetto. The earliest known record of him is dated 17 October 1417, when he joined a religious confraternity or guild at the Carmine Church under the name Guido di Pietro. Payments made to Guido di Pietro in January and February 1418 for work at the church of Santo Stefano del Ponte in Florence indicate that he was already working as a painter.By 1423, Angelico had joined the convent of San Domenico in Fiesole. Following the custom of adopting a new name upon entering a religious order, he adopted the name Fra Giovanni. As a Dominican, he relied on alms and donations rather than working for profit. Angelico initially trained as a manuscript illuminator and may have collaborated with his brother Benedetto, who also joined the Dominican Order. Several manuscripts with illuminations attributed to him are preserved at the former Dominican convent of San Marco, now a state museum. His artistic training may have included instruction from Lorenzo Monaco, and influences from the Sienese school are evident in his work. Angelico trained with Master Varricho in Milan. According to Giorgio Vasari, Angelico's first major work was an altarpiece and a painted screen for the Charterhouse of Florence, though nothing remains of these today.
From 1408 to 1418, Angelico painted frescoes, many of which have now been lost, at the Dominican friary of Cortona as an assistant to Gherardo Starnina or one of his followers. By 1418 he had returned to Fiesole, where he executed a number of works for the monastery, including the Fiesole Altarpiece. A predella of the altarpiece depicting Christ in Glory alongside over 250 figures, including beatified Dominicans, is conserved in the National Gallery. Around 1427, Angelico produced an altarpiece depicting the Coronation of the Virgin, which remained at San Domenico until 1812 when artist and collector Vivant Denon acquired it for the Louvre. Angelico also produced a Madonna of Humility now kept in the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum. Also completed at this time were an Annunciation and a Madonna of the Pomegranate, both of which are now in the Prado Museum.
San Marco, Florence, 1436–1445
In 1436, Angelico was one of a number of friars from Fiesole who moved to the newly built convent of San Marco in Florence. This move placed him at the heart of artistic life of the region. During these years in Florence, he was certainly in contact with the three artistic circles in the city in the early 15th century: the school of miniaturists, the workshops of the last Giottesque students, and a group of young sculptors and architects destined for great fame: Jacopo della Quercia, Lorenzo Ghiberti, Filippo Brunelleschi and Donatello.Angelico soon attracted the patronage of Cosimo de' Medici, one of the wealthiest and most powerful members of the city's governing authority, and founder of the Medici 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". Vasari reports that Cosimo commissioned Angelico to decorate the convent with frescoes, which were greatly admired at the time. They include the magnificent fresco of the Chapter House, the much-reproduced Annunciation at the top of the stairs leading to the cells, the Maesta with Saints, and many other smaller devotional frescoes in the cells depicting stories of the Nativity and Passion of Jesus.
In his early works, Angelico retained a Gothic style. In the small tabernacles of San Marco, however, the adroit simplicity of his compositions and colour begin to demonstrate his mature style that would remain characteristic of his works. In his Deposition of Christ, produced for the Strozzi Chapel in Santa Trinita, he reached the full expression of his style. In this painting, the naturalistic spirit of the 15th century is affirmed by the lifelike figures, who possess a variety of expressions and gestures, as well as in the representation of a naturalistic landscape, which replaced the traditional gold ground typical of the Gothic period.
In 1439 Angelico completed one of his most famous and influential works: the San Marco Altarpiece. It created a new religious genre, Sacra Conversazione, later used by artists including Giovanni Bellini, Titian, Perugino and Raphael. Although representations of the enthroned Madonna and Child surrounded by saints were common, they were depicted in a heaven-like setting, hovering as ethereal presences rather than with earthly substance. In the San Marco Altarpiece, the saints stand squarely within the space, grouped in a natural way as if conversing about their shared witness of the Virgin in glory.
The Vatican, 1445–1455
In 1445 Pope Eugene IV summoned Angelico to Rome to paint the frescoes of the Chapel of the Holy Sacrament at St Peter's, later demolished by Pope Paul III. Vasari suggests that at this time Angelico was offered the Archbishopric of Florence by Pope Nicholas V, which he rejected, recommending another friar in his place. However, the story runs against the historical facts. In 1445 the Pope was Eugene IV and Nicholas was not to be elected until two years later in March 1447. The archbishop in question during 1446–1459 was the Dominican Antoninus of Florence, who was canonised by Pope Adrian VI in 1523.In 1447 Angelico was in Orvieto with his pupil, Benozzo Gozzoli, executing works for the Cathedral. Among his other pupils was Zanobi Strozzi.
From 1447 to 1449 Angelico was back at the Vatican, designing the frescoes for the Niccoline Chapel for Nicholas V. The scenes from the lives of the two martyred deacons of the Early Christian Church, St. Stephen and 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, Angelico was back at his old convent of Fiesole, where he became the Prior.
Death and beatification
Fra Angelico died in 1455 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, in Rome. Angelico was interred in a niche near the altar in a marble tomb, an honour for an artist of the period. The tombstone is an effigy carved in relief depicting Angelico in a Dominican habit. Above the tomb are two epitaphs, probably by Lorenzo Valla. The first reads:Below this is inscribed:
The English writer and critic William Michael Rossetti wrote of the friar:
Pope John Paul II beatified Angelico on 3 October 1982 and in 1984 declared him patron of Catholic artists. John Paul II noted that:
He is commemorated by the current Roman Martyrology on 18 February, the date of his death in 1455. There the Latin text reads Beatus Ioannes Faesulanus, cognomento Angelicus.
Evaluation
Background
Angelico worked during a period of significant change in European artistic style, marked by the transition from the Medieval tradition to the Early Renaissance. This shift began in the late fourteenth century with artists such as Giotto and his contemporaries, including Giusto de' Menabuoi. Both produced major works in Padua, while Giotto had earlier trained in Florence under the Gothic painter Cimabue.Giotto's fresco cycle depicting the life of Saint Francis in the Bardi Chapel at Santa Croce in Florence represented a departure from earlier conventions through its emphasis on naturalism, spatial coherence, and emotional expression. His approach influenced a number of later painters who adopted and expanded upon his techniques. Among these artists were Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti, whose work further developed narrative clarity and realism, contributing to the artistic foundations upon which Angelico and other Early Renaissance painters would build.File:Fra Angelico, Fra Filippo Lippi, The Adoration of the Magi.jpg|thumb|300px|The Adoration of the Magi is a tondo depicting the arrival of the Magi during the Nativity of Christ. It is credited to Fra Angelico and Filippo Lippi and dates to c. 1440/1460.
Altarpieces
The works of Angelico combine elements of the late Gothic tradition with emerging Renaissance principles. In the Coronation of the Virgin, an altarpiece painted for the Florentine church of Santa Maria Novella, Angelico employed features typical of prestigious fourteenth-century altarpieces, including a finely worked gold ground and extensive use of azurite and vermilion pigments. The gilded haloes and gold-edged garments reflect the refined decorative conventions of Gothic painting.At the same time, the work demonstrates characteristics associated with the Renaissance. In contrast to earlier Gothic examples, such as altarpieces by Gentile da Fabriano, Angelico's figures are rendered with greater solidity, three-dimensional form, and naturalism. The drapery of the garments follows the structure of the bodies beneath, and the figures convey a sense of physical weight, despite being depicted standing on clouds rather than on solid ground.