Fra Angelico

Beato Angelico, il
Giovanni da Fiesole

Florentine, c. 1395 - 1455

Information from Wikipedia, made available under the Creative Commons Attribution – Share Alike License

Italian Early Renaissance painter

Explore Selected Works

Nine people are gathered in a landscape around the gaunt body of a young man being carried on a cloth in the lower half of this vertical painting. All the people have pale skin tinged with yellow, and all but one have shiny gold halos. The space is framed to the right by a stone-gray structure with a squared opening and, to the left, with a brown, rocky outcropping. Tall cypress trees and sage-green vegetation grow up and over the structure to our right. The bearded young man, Jesus, is laid out horizontally with his feet to our left, on a flax-yellow cloth carried by two elderly men. He is nude except for a white cloth across his hips, and there are tiny red slashes on the hand and foot we can see, and over his right ribs, farther from us. Just beyond the body, a woman draped in a marine-blue robe bends to gaze at Jesus’s face while being supported by two other women. A young, cleanshaven man in a coral-pink robe over a steel-gray garment stands by them, on our left, with his head lowered and hands clasped. On our side of the body are two women with their backs to us. The woman on the left kneels at Jesus’s corpse with her head bent as she wipes his feet. The woman on the right sits on the ground with her robe drawn over her head, and she covers her face with her hands. On the ground between them, a hammer, the ring of thorns with three arrows extending from it, and a nail puller lie on an white cloth. The only person without a halo is a bearded man standing to our right, closest to the opening in the structure. He wears a red robe and cap draped with a white cowl. The ground beneath the group is carpeted with pine-green grass, and a sprinkling of white dots suggests small flowers. A palm tree stands just outside a tall, narrow wooden gate beyond the group. The gate opens onto a landscape with a river winding to meet a town and hazy mountains in the distance. A tall, steep, laurel-green hill to our left is topped with three wooden crosses, and bodies hang from the crosses to either side. A few bands of clouds float across the sky, which deepens from ivory white at the horizon to azure blue along the top edge.
Fra Angelico, The Entombment of Christ, c. 1450, tempera on poplar panel, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1939.1.260

The Entombment of Christ

Fra Angelico · c. 1450 · tempera on poplar panel ·  Accession ID  1939.1.260

Dozens of people line up around a shed-like structure and around stone ruins to kneel before a woman and baby at the lower center of this circular painting. All the people have pale skin. The crowd gathers along a pathway that winds around a rocky mountain at the top middle of the composition. Most of the people are on foot but a few ride horses or camels. The line of people curves around and through an arched opening in a stone ruin to our left. Sitting at the center of the painting, behind the woman and baby, Mary and Jesus, the structure is open at the front and has a triangular pitched roof. Some of the people, including the three closest to Mary and Jesus, wear elegant, gold-trimmed clothing. Others wear simple tunics, and several people standing along the ruins in the middle distance wear only white loincloths. Ages of the people range from young and cleanshaven to older and bearded. Their costumes are mostly pale yellow, coral orange, crimson red, shell pink, or sky blue. Some people raise their heads and hands while others hold hands to their chests and close their eyes. Mary wears a pale blue robe over a blush-pink dress. Jesus is nude and an older man standing nearby wears an apricot-colored robe over a blue tunic. The older man, Mary, and Jesus have gold halos. A peacock and two other birds stand on the roof of the manger, which shelters an ox, ass, and horses.
Fra Angelico, Fra Filippo Lippi, The Adoration of the Magi, c. 1440/1460, tempera on poplar panel, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1952.2.2

The Adoration of the Magi

Fra Angelico, Fra Filippo Lippi · c. 1440/1460 · tempera on poplar panel ·  Accession ID  1952.2.2

A group of four people gather around a person in a bed, seen through an open doorway to our left, while a man and woman stand near a second doorway of a beige building in this horizontal painting. All the people have pale skin. Seen through the arched opening in the room to our left, two people with flat, plate-like gold halos offer a vessel to the person sitting up in bed. The people with the halos wear raspberry-pink and white cloaks over aquamarine-blue robes. They each also wear a cap with a red, mushroom-like top over a white band that encircles the head. The person sitting up in bed wears a white robe, and her lap is covered with a red blanket. Two more people peer over the headboard behind her. A three-legged stool and a tray with a ewer sits near the bed. In the arched opening to our right, a woman wears a lilac-purple dress with a white head covering that drapes over her shoulders. She holds out a straw-colored box, perhaps a basket, to a man with a gold halo, who also wears pink and white cloaks over a blue tunic and the red cap. He holds one hand up in front of his chest and reaches for the box with the other. The door to our right is set back and the ground in front of it is covered with paving stones. Atop the wall over the right-hand door sits a wide, rounded pot with dark green plants, in front of a sliver of topaz-blue sky. There are cracks across the surface of the panel, especially visible in the building’s flat façade.
Fra Angelico, The Healing of Palladia by Saint Cosmas and Saint Damian, c. 1438/1440, tempera and oil on poplar panel, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1952.5.3

The Healing of Palladia by Saint Cosmas and Saint Damian

Fra Angelico · c. 1438/1440 · tempera and oil on poplar panel ·  Accession ID  1952.5.3

A woman sits in the center of this vertical panel painting and gazes down at a baby lying across her lap while two winged angels hold up a red, gold, and black brocade-like patterned cloth behind her. All the people have pale skin, pink cheeks, blond hair, and flat, gold halos. The woman’s body is angled slightly to our right, and she holds her hands crossed over her chest as she gazes down at the baby. The woman has a straight, pointed nose and a small, pink-lipped mouth. Her azure-blue robe covers her head and drapes over much of the crimson-red dress beneath. The edge of the robe and cuff of her dress are trimmed in gold. The baby lies with his arms slightly raised, and he looks up at the woman. His hips and legs are wrapped with sheer white cloth. The angels in the upper corners of the panel both wear robes in the same azure blue of the woman, and the garments have a gold band around the high waist and gold around the neckline. They look at the woman and hold up the cloth that falls behind and under her and the baby.
Fra Angelico, The Madonna of Humility, c. 1430, tempera on panel, Andrew W. Mellon Collection, 1937.1.5

The Madonna of Humility

Fra Angelico · c. 1430 · tempera on panel ·  Accession ID  1937.1.5

Bibliography

1900

  • Douglas, Langton. Fra Angelico. London, 1900.

1924

  • Schottmüller, Frida. Fra Angelico da Fiesole. 2nd ed. Stuttgart, 1924.

1952

  • Pope-Hennessy, John. Fra Angelico. London, 1952. 2nd ed. London and New York, 1974.

1958

  • Salmi, Mario. Il Beato Angelico. Spoleto, 1958.

1964

  • Orland, Stefano. Beato Angelico. Florence, 1964.

1970

  • Baldini, Umberto. L'opera completa dell'Angelico. Intro. by Elsa Morante. Milan, 1970.

1976

  • Boskovits, Miklós. "Appunti sull' Angelico." Paragone 27, no. 313 (March 1976): 30-54.

1980

  • Cole Ahl, Diane E. "Fra Angelico: A New Chronology for the 1420s." Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 43 (1980): 360-381.

1981

  • Cole Ahl, Diane E. "Fra Angelico: A New Chronology for the 1430s." Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 44 (1981): 133-158.

1996

  • Spike, John T. Fra Angelico. New York, London, and Paris, 1996.

1998

  • Bonsanti, Giorgio. Beato Angelico. Catalogo completo. Florence, 1998.

2003

  • Boskovits, Miklós, and David Alan Brown, et al. Italian Paintings of the Fifteenth Century. The Systematic Catalogue of the National Gallery of Art. Washington, D.C., 2003: 8.