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Fra Angelico's fresco paintings at the Dominican priory of San Marco are among the best-loved works of Italian art, yet they have been oddly neglected by art historians. In this beautiful book, William Hood analyzes the newly cleaned frescoes at San Marco, setting them against the background of fifteenth-century Florentine artistic, political, cultural, and religious history. Hood discusses the ideals, daily rituals, and pictorial traditions of the Dominican order - especially the reformed or Observant branch to which Fra Angelico belonged. He presents new material on traditions of religious art, altarpiece design and imagery, and the decoration of chapter rooms and cloisters. Hood compares Fra Angelico's work at San Marco to earlier Dominican altarpieces and to his other altarpieces for Dominican buildings in Siena, Pisa, Prato, and Florence, pointing out both the traditional elements and the startling novelty of the San Marco altarpiece. Similarly, by comparing San Marco to other Florentine fresco cycles, he illuminates the originality of the cloister and chapter-house of San Marco. Hood's discussion of San Marco follows an itinerary through the church and adjoining convent buildings, beginning with the high altarpiece and ending with the corridor paintings - especially the exquisite Annunciation in the corridor of the north dormitory. Throughout, he analyzes Angelico's use of color, his technique in fresco and tempera, the way he solved specific visual problems, and how his paintings affected fifteenth-century viewers. This beautiful book will be an important addition to our understanding of fifteenth-century art and of artistic and cultural practices.
With illustrations that demonstrate the rich colors and intense light that imbue Fra Angelico’s work, this book takes a deeper look at one of the master painters of the Florentine Renaissance. One of the great fifteenth-century masters, Fra Angelico was one of several painters who shaped the beginnings of the Florentine Renaissance. Although, because of his occupation as a friar, he is sometimes considered separately from his contemporaries, including Masaccio, Masolino, Paolo Uccello, Filippo Lippi, Lorenzo Ghiberti, Donatello, Nanni di Banco, and Filippo Brunelleschi, Fra Angelico and the Rise of the Florentine Renaissance examines his early works and shows that not only was he a participant in the artistic culture of the time, but also a key innovator. Angelico’s breakthrough work from the mid-1420s, the Prado’s great Annunciation altarpiece, is regarded as the first Renaissance-style altarpiece in Florence. Published to accompany the exhibition “Fra Angelico and the Rise of the Florentine Renaissance” at the Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, this book reveals the results of the Prado’s extensive conservation and technological research efforts on The Annunciation, as well as two other recently acquired Angelico paintings: the Alba Madonna and the Funeral of Saint Anthony Abbot. Vividly illustrated and deeply illuminating, this book investigates the origins of the Florentine Renaissance and positions Angelico at the heart of the story.
Hypochondria, insomnia, restlessness, and yearning are the lame muses of these brief pages. I would have liked to call them Extravaganzas . . . because many of them wander about in a strange outside that has no inside, like drifting splinters. . . . Alien to any orbit, I have the impression they navigate in familiar spaces whose geometry nevertheless remains a mystery; let’s say domestic thickets: the interstitial zones of our daily having to be, or bumps on the surface of existence . . . In them, in the form of quasi-stories, are the murmurings and mutterings that have accompanied and still accompany me: outbursts, moods, little ecstasies, real or presumed emotions, grudges, and regrets. —Antonio Tabucchi on The Flying Creatures of Fra Angelico
Fra Angelico transformed painting in Florence with his pioneering images. Reuniting for the first time his four ingenious reliquaries for Santa Maria Novella, this publication explores his celebrated talents as a storyteller and the artistic contributions that shaped a new ideal of painting.
Two fascinating essays reveal how art historians and conservators do their sleuthing. Laurence Kantor explores the attribution of three of his panels that had been at Yale but belong to a triptych at the Getty.
This sumptuously illustrated catalogue charts the history of drawing in Italy from 1400, just prior to the emergence in Florence of the classically inspired naturalism of the Renaissance style, to around 1510 when Michelangelo, Raphael and Titian were on the verge of taking the innovations of earlier masters, such as Leonardo and Pollaiuolo, in a new direction. The book highlights the key role played by drawing in artistic teaching and in how artists studied the human body and the natural world. Aspects of regional difference, the development of new drawing techniques and classes of graphic work, such as finished presentation pieces to impress patrons, are also explored. An extended introduction focusing on how and why artists made drawings, with a special emphasis on the pivotal role of Leonardo, is richly illustrated with examples from the two collections that elucidate the technique and function of the works. This is followed by catalogue entries for just over 100 drawings where discussion of their function and significance is supported by comparative illustrations of related works, such as paintings.
The fifteenth-century Florentine painter Fra Angelico was a pivotal figure of the Italian Renaissance. The work of this devout Dominican friar was nurtured in Gothic convention, yet came to embody and carry forward the tide of innovation begun by Giotto and others a century before. In frescoes and paintings on wood, Angelico's superb handling of color; his mastery of the new science of perspective, and his delicate modeling of faces and figures have earned him increasing recognition as the greatest successor to Massaccio and an important influence on Piero della Francesca. Prefigurations of the High Renaissance work of Raphael and da Vinci may also be glimpsed in Angelico's mature work. Yet for this deeply religious artist/friar, innovation always served his higher purpose: to inspire the viewer to contemplation, devotion, and awareness of the sacred. Fra Angelico: The Light of the Soul is the first major book devoted to the art of this inspired Renaissance master. Focusing on his work in the museum and cells of the convent of San Marco, Florence, which houses Angelico's finest and most representative work, this beautiful volume contains 190 illustrations reproduced in four colors plus gold. The great frescoes, represented for the first time since their restoration in 1983, are reproduced on onionskin paper to stunning effect, beautifully conveying their luminosity and freshness. Dramatic close-ups, moving details, and startling juxtapositions bring to life the full range of the artist's work--from his famous frescoes, the Crucifixion and Annunciation, to the monumental San Marco and Bosco ai Frati altarpieces, to his small and delicate Scenes from the Life of Christ. -- ‡c From book jacket.
Art history need not be dry or dull, as O'Reilly's book shows. Featuring 90 full-color photos of many of the masterpieces of the movement, the book delves into the work of such masters as Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, Botticelli, and Fra Angelico. Full-color photos and illustrations.
