| Fra Angelico | |
| A Special Exhibition Review by Stan Parchin |
About the show:
Laurence Kanter, Curator-in-Charge of the Robert Lehman Collection, has mounted Fra Angelico at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art with sheer majesty. His two-level special exhibition in The Met's Robert Lehman Wing, its premiere architectural extension, is devoted to the outstanding career of the fifteenth-century Italian Renaissance master and his followers. The show celebrates the artistic genius of Fra Angelico (ca. 1390/95-1455), the Dominican friar whose ingenuity in painting resonated throughout parts of fifteenth-century Italy.
Fra Angelico displays many of the pious painter's small-scale religious works. Modern scholarship has freed the Frate from the cloak of previously conceived academic conservatism. Recent archival and scientific advances have revealed Fra Angelico's true inventiveness. Sections from some of Fra Angelico's altarpieces have been reunited at The Met for the first time since their creation. More than 50 American and European public institutions and private collections contributed to this monumental exhibition. The show features more than 70 of Fra Angelico's paintings, drawings and manuscript illuminations, spanning his entire career, plus an additional 45 works painted by five of his assistants and closest followers.
The friar's formidable frescoes in the Dominican Convent of San Marco, commissioned by the Florentine despot Cosimo de' Medici (1389-1464), are conspicuously absent from this show. That's because Fra Angelico painted the institution's devotional images directly onto wet plaster that dried very quickly on the walls of the monks' cells (sparsely furnished bedrooms). This medium, fresco, incorporated the painter's poignant images into the fabric of the building, having created a testament to the artist's superlative artistic skills. Color photographs from San Marco's serene monastic interiors, reproduced and enlarged (with details), can be seen on the Lehman Wing's First Floor, along with paintings created by some of Fra Angelico's contemporaries influenced by him.
When entering the Lehman Wing, take one of the two side elevators down one level. Walk up the central ramp and turn left, where the show begins. Proceed clockwise through the galleries. Signs will lead you to the remainder of the show upstairs, reached by staircase or again by elevator.
Guido di Pietro was born in the northern countryside of Florence at the end of the Fourteenth Century. Between 1419 and 1422, he joined the Dominican monastic order and took the name Fra Giovanni. Following the departure of the artistic prodigy Masaccio (1401-1428) from Florence to Rome in 1427 (he died one year later under mysterious circumstances, possibly having been poisoned by a despicable rival), Fra Giovanni became the preeminent painter of remarkable altarpieces and other religious works in Tuscany for nearly 30 years. Called "pictor angelicus" or "Angelic Painter" shortly after his death in 1455, this title was later translated into English as Fra Angelico.
Fra Angelico (Italian, ca. 1390/95-1455)
Eighteen Blessed of the Dominican Order, ca. 1420-24
Tempera on panel
Overall, 12 5/8 x 9 in.; picture surface 12 1/2 x 8 5/8 in.
The National Gallery, London, United Kingdom
© National Gallery, London
Eighteen Blessed of the Dominican Order (ca. 1420-24) is one of two complementary paintings from the early part of Fra Angelico's career. The pair of tempera on wood panels, along with The Metropolitan Museum's portrait of Saint Alexander, are derived from the High Altarpiece from San Domenico, Fiesole, the artist's first major commission bestowed upon him by his own monastic order. Eighteen Blessed..., like its companion panel, is interpreted by some scholars as a necrologium or obituary in pictorial form. Original inscriptions from both paintings have identified many of the persons depicted as thirteenth- and fourteenth-century religious figures related to the Dominican Order. Arranged in rows against a common gold background, one sees monks of administrative stature, Christian saints and martyrs, a pope and monastic persons as yet unidentified. Although the rendering of the figures' faces is clearly individual, their depictions are not portraits in the true sense of the word. All except one of the identifiable religious predeceased Fra Angelico by many years.
Fra Angelico (Italian, ca. 1390/95-1455)
The Nativity, ca. 1429-30
Tempera and gold on panel
11 3/8 x 7 7/16 in.
Pinacoteca Civica, Forlì, Italy
© Nazario Spadoni, Forlì
Presumably part of a portable altarpiece, Fra Angelico's Nativity (ca. 1429-30) is an unusual nocturnal study of the infant Jesus' birth. The artist painted the manger, wherein the Holy Family resides and surmounted by nine haloed angels, at a sharp angle to the picture plane. In the foreground are: Saint Joseph, arms reverentially crossed; the glistening Christ Child; and the diminutive Virgin Mary, hands pressed against each other in a prayerful stance. Fra Angelico's depiction of the Madonna bears a sharp resemblance to others taken from illuminated manuscripts of the times. Behind her are a benign mule and ox in seated postures. The complacent animals and the manger's increasingly dark background suggest depth, a perspectival illusion accomplished most convincingly by Fra Angelico's short-lived contemporary, Masaccio, in his Trinità (1427-28) fresco in Florence's Santa Maria Novella. Nevertheless, Fra Angelico, by now a master colorist, succeeded in his spiritually evocative portrayal of the infant Jesus' birth.
Fra Angelico (Italian, ca. 1390/95-1455)
The Virgin of Humility, ca. 1436-38
Tempera on panel
29 1/8 x 24 in.
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, Netherlands
© Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
Fra Angelico's Virgin of Humility (ca. 1436-38) from the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam dates to the artist's period of artistic maturity. In a radical and innovative departure from the accepted canon of artistic symbols during the Italian Renaissance, the friar's Madonna holds a stiff sprig of lily (a Christian symbol of the Virgin Mary) in her right hand, usually reserved for interpretations of the Annunciation. Seated on a throne covered by a golden fabric with intricate designs, Fra Angelico painted the Virgin Mary with the sweeping folds of her monumental deep blue cloak. The Virgin Mother holds the infant Jesus in her left arm; the Christ Child gestures gently to grasp his mother in an endearing expression of sensitivity and humanity.
Truly the most arresting painting in the exhibition, and perhaps in all of Fra Angelico's career, is his Christ Crowned with Thorns (ca. 1438-39) from Livorno, Italy. A radical departure from his beatific angels and inspired scenes of the Nativity, this brilliant introspective tempera and gold on panel masterpiece has been the subject of much scholarly debate, due to its stylistic affinity with an early Netherlandish painting of the same subject by Jan van Eyck (act. 1422; d. 1441). Fra Angelico's confrontational composition is a visually disturbing bust-length portrait of Christ having been crowned with thorns while alive and before his imminent crucifixion. Traces of blood realistically trail over Christ's savaged face. His eyes reddened by agony and set deeply within the Savior's head, this iconic image is prophetic. The gold collar around Christ's neck identifies him as the King of Kings in Latin, words from the Book of the Apocalypse inscribed on the rim of Jesus' mantle.
Fra Angelico concludes on the Lehman Wing's First Floor with paintings inspired by the "angelic friar" and produced by his contemporaries. Zanobi Strozzi's Adoration of the Magi (ca. 1435-40), completed questionably with Fra Angelico, stands out singularly among the rest. This predella panel, intended as a narrative component for the bottom of an altarpiece, depicts the Holy Family receiving the Three Wise Men and a coterie of other characters. The visitors are dressed in their best finery, arriving on top of lush floral greenery, visually reminiscent of richly embroidered tapestries and a painting of the same name by Benozzo Gozzoli (1420-1497), an assistant of Fra Angelico.
Zanobi Strozzi (Italian, 1412-1468)
The Adoration of the Magi, ca. 1435-40
Tempera on panel
Overall, 8 x 9 in.; picture surface, 7 1/2 x 18 5/8 in.
The National Gallery, London, United Kingdom
© National Gallery, London
The spiritual immediacy of Fra Angelico's paintings is evident in this splendid retrospective at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. It's no wonder that the late Pope John Paul II beatified the Dominican friar in 1984, His Holiness having recognized him publicly as the patron of painters.
Special thanks to Hilda O'Connell-Harris, MFA, celebrated painter, art historian and instructor of Fine Arts at Regis High School, for her insightful contribution to this article.
About the catalogue:
Kanter, Laurence B., et al. Fra Angelico (exh. cat.)
New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2005.
Through more than 70 paintings, manuscript illuminations and drawings, the lively 348-page, color and black & white text provides fresh insights into the life and paintings of Fra Angelico, one of Renaissance Italy's most innovative artists.
For further reading:
Hood, William. Fra Angelico at San Marco.
New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1993.
Hood describes Fra Angelico's frescoes at San Marco in Florence through excellent (although extremely detailed) research and some phenomenal color photographs.
Kanter, Laurence B. and Barbara Drake Boehm (eds.). Painting and Illumination in Early Renaissance Florence: 1300-1450 (exh. cat.).
New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1995.
Clearly illustrates the interaction of painters and manuscript illuminators in Trecento and early Quattrocento Florence, with some emphasis on Fra Angelico.
"Fra Angelico" is on view from October 26, 2005 through January 29, 2006 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Avenue at 82 Street, New York, NY 10028-0198 (Telephone: 212-535-7710; Website: www.metmuseum.org). The museum is open Tuesday through Thursday and Sunday from 9:30 AM to 5:30 PM and Friday and Saturday from 9:30 AM to 9:00 PM. SUGGESTED admission is $15.00 for adults. Paid parking is available in The Museum Garage.
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From your Guide: Stan Parchin, Senior Correspondent for Museums and Special Exhibitions, is a specialist in ancient, late-medieval and Renaissance art and history, and a regular contributor to About Art History. You may read all of his Special Exhibition and Catalogue Reviews here.
