Fra Angelico
Angelic Painter
Guido di Pietro was born in Tuscany about 1390-1395. He chose the name Fra Giovanni when he joined the Dominican convent of San Domenico in Fiesole about 1417. After his death in 1455, he was praised as the angelic painter and posthumously called Fra Angelico.
Fra Angelico was one of the main painters of the Early Renaissance in Florence. He pioneered many of the stylistic trends from that period, including the rational treatment of pictorial space and the volumetric modelling of forms with light and shadow. Far from being a humble reclusive monk, Fra Angelico really was a significant artist, whose works greatly impacted his contemporaries. At every stage of his career, he remained at the forefront of artistic innovation in Florence.
The climax of Fra Angelico’s career came with the commission of frescoes for the convent of San Marco in Florence (1438-1443), by Cosimo de Medici, to which The Presentation in the Temple belongs. Scholars agree that the fresco of The Presentation of Jesus in the Temple is autograph, although some suggest minor participation by assistants. Some scholars consider that it was one of the first to be executed by Fra Angelico.
Fra Angelico was beatified in 1982 by pope John Paul II. In 1984, Pope John Paul II described the Dominican friar in these words: In lui l’arte diventa preghiera (Through him, art becomes prayer.).
The Convento di San Marco
The frescoes for the Covento di San Marco in Florence were one of Fra Giovanni’s most important commissions. In 1436, Pope Eugene IV ceded the monastery to the Dominicans of Fiesole, facilitating their move into the city of Florence. Cosimo de’ Medici the Elder funded most of the refurbishment.
He went to Michelozzo di Bartolomeo for the architectural renovation and Fra Angelico for the decoration. The impressive decorative programme comprised an altarpiece and fifty frescoes. The frescoes include:
- half-length saints in lunettes over each door in the cloister,
on the north wall of the cloister, Christ on the Cross adored by saint Dominic - on the north wall of the chapter house: a crucifixion with saints
- refectory: frescoes
- forty-three cells of the dormitory: frescoes
- corridors: frescoes.
The Presentation of Jesus in the Temple was painted for cell 10 of the priory of San Marco. Cells 10 and 11 were the prior’s double cell. In cell 11 is a fresco of The Virgin and Child enthroned with Saints.
The Dominican Order
It is significant that these frescoes were painted for the now nine-hundred-year-old Dominican order, or Order of Preachers, which was founded by Spanish priest Dominic of Caleruega in France. The Dominican order was made up of clerics or ordained priests who lived monastically and carried out a ministry of preaching.
The architectural and decorative programmes in San Marco follow Saint Dominic’s recommendations. St Dominic prescribed that his followers’ cells be small, humble and lowly. The friars’ vow of poverty should apply to space as well, with barely enough room for a bed and desk.
The humility of the cells was conferred by a yearning for abstraction and transparent geometry, by the ostentatious denial of decoration. The cells were used for sleep, study, meditation and solitary prayer.
The prior and chapter of San Marco believed that painting played an essential role in supporting the monks in their work. Fra Angelico and his team gave each friar an image to meditate, to complete and perfect their preparation of the spreading of the Word.
Iconography
This fresco depicts the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple. The sole source for the episode is the Gospel according to Luke: Luke 2, 22
“When the days were completed for their purification according to the law of Moses, they took him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord”.
In accordance with the Mosaic Law (Ex 13, 1-2 ”The LORD spoke to Moses and said, "Consecrate to me every first-born that opens the womb among the Israelites, both of man and beast, for it belongs to me.”), Jesus’ parents made their way to Jerusalem to present their newborn son to the Lord and offer up a pair of turtledoves as a sacrifice. Simeon encouraged, by the Holy Spirit, went to the temple that day took Jesus in his arms and cried out to God. Anna, a prophetess who lived in the Temple, began to talk to the Child.
Two rituals were prescribed by the Mosaic law after birth of a child:
- circumcision for male children
- purification of the mother by presenting her child in the temple and making an offering.
The two rituals are often ‘aggregated’ and/or mixed up in Christian art. Theoretically, Circumcision was to happen eight days after the birth whilst Presentation in the Temple was to happen forty days after the birth.
One could wonder why the Virgin Mary had to go through this purification. It is seen as a symbol of her humility and obedience to the Law. She offered a couple of turtledoves, which was the offering of the poor, as opposed to a lamb, the offering of the rich. The nature of the offering outlines the humility of the Virgin Mary even more. The Presentation of infants in the temple was a festive occasion for the Israelites, certainly a happy moment of Mary and Joseph’s life of faith.
Composition
Composition
The scene is the joyful recognition of the Messiah in the poor child presented in the temple by his parents. It was chosen to inspire the Dominican prior who would contemplate it every day. The scene is featured in a semi-circular apse, the conch decorated with a shell motif in the style of the Antiquity, a feature which would have been found in many contemporary buildings.
In most languages, writing is a complement to speech or spoken language. Writing is not a language but a form of technology. Within a language system, writing relies on many of the same structures as speech, such as vocabulary, grammar and semantics, with the added dependency of a system of signs or symbols, usually in the form of a formal alphabet. The result of writing is generally called text, and the recipient of text is called a reader. Motivations for writing include publication, storytelling, correspondence and diary. Writing has been instrumental in keeping history, dissemination of knowledge through the media and the formation of legal systems.
The characters are:
Joseph: portrayed as a mature man, bearded, wearing yellow ochre garments; he smiles as he offers a basket containing two turtledoves;
Mary: her head covered by her bright caput mortuum mantle, falling in straight folds to the ground over her tunic; her face follows the Son with an anxious smile; her hands and fingers seem to offer security;
Simeon: an old man, long haired, wearing a green and yellow ochre tunic; he is carrying Jesus and gazes on him with premonition and gratitude;
Christ Child: in white swaddling clothes, gentle melancholy of his face;
Anna: to the right, prophetess, is wearing her widow’s garments;
St. Peter Martyr (St. Peter of Verona): to the left, is kneeling in prayer in his dark cloak marked with rigid and angled folds (a Dominican friar martyr saint who died in 1252).
All figures in the ceremony express unquestioning faith. The fresco doesn’t convey the presentiment of death, despite the fact that Anna and Simeon perceive Jesus’ future sufferings and Peter aware of his martyrdom.
In the Dominican liturgical calendar, the anniversary of the Presentation falls on the same day as the feast of the Purification of the Virgin, one of the Order’s most important feast days. Both feasts exalted the virtues of obedience (Mary accepted the rite of Purification in observance of the Laws), voluntary poverty (Humanity was presented in the temple in absolute poverty) and charity.
Fra Angelico Angelic Painter
Story, David Boyle. Art studies, Clemence Couriet Bossan
Created for St James's Spanish Place
References
Jacqueline et Maurice Guillaud, Fra Angelico. Lumière de l’âme.
Peintures et fresques du couvent San Marco de Florence, Paris, Guillaud, 1986.
Diane Cole Ahl, Fra Angelico, London, Phaidon, 2008.
Paulo Morachiello, The San Marco frescoes, London, Thames & Hudson, 1996.
Emmanuel Benezit, Dictionary of artists, Paris, Gründ, 2006, vol. 1.
Gaston Duchet-Suchaux, Michel Pastoureau, The Bible and the Saints, Paris, Flammarion, 1994.
