Paris Art Studies - Fra Angelico (Vichio di Mugello c. 1400 – Rome 1455)
c. 1395 – Fra Angelico was born Guido di
Pietro at Rupecanina near Fiesole in Tuscany. Nothing is known of his parents.
He was baptized Guido or Guidolino.
1417 - The earliest recorded document
concerning Fra Angelico dates from October of this year when he joined a
religious confraternity at the Carmine Church, still under the name of Guido di
Pietro.
1418 – He is known to work as a painter
thanks to two records of payment to Guido di Pietro for work done in the church
of Santo Stefano del Ponte. He is known to have worked also in the Dominican
friary in Cortona where he was possibly the assistant of Gherardo Starnina.
1423 - First record of Angelico as a friar
dates from this year, when he is first referred to as Fra Giovanni, following
the custom of those entering a religious order of taking a new name. He was a
member of the Dominican community at Fiesole. Fra, an abbreviation of frate
(from the Latin frater), is a conventional title for a friar or brother. According to Vasari, Fra Angelico
initially received training as an illuminator, possibly working with his older
brother Benedetto who was also a Dominican and an illuminator. The painter
Lorenzo Monaco may have contributed to his art training, and the influence of
the Sienese school is discernible in his work. He had several important charges
in the convents he lived in, but this did not limit his artistic activities,
which soon made him famous. According to Vasari his first paintings were a, now
lost, altarpiece and a painted screen for the Carthusian monastery in Florence.
In the 1420’s he was based in Fiesole.
1436 - Fra Angelico was one of a number of
the friars from Fiesole who moved to the newly-built Friary of San Marco in
Florence. This move brought him to
the greatest artistic center in Italy and also the patronage of one of the
wealthiest and most powerful members of the city's Signoria, Cosimo de’Medici.
Cosimo had a large cell reserved for himself at the friary as a retreat from
the world. It was, according to Vasari, at Cosimo's urging that Fra Angelico
set about the task of decorating the monastery, including the Chapter House
fresco, the celebrated Annunciation at the top of the stairs to the cells, the
Maesta with Saints and the many smaller devotional frescoes depicting aspects
of the Life of Christ that adorn the walls of each cell.
1439 - Fra Angelico completed one of his
most famous works, the Altarpiece for St. Marco's, Florence. The result was
unusual for its times. Images of the enthroned Madonna and Child surrounded by
saints were common, but they usually depicted a setting that was clearly
heavenly, in which saints and angels hovered about as divine presences rather
than people. But in this instance, the saints stand squarely within the space,
grouped in a natural way as if they were able to converse about the shared
experience of witnessing the Virgin in glory. This was the birth of anew genre
that came to be known as Sacred Conversations.
1445 – Summoned by Pope Eugenius IV to
Rome to paint the frescoes of the Chapel of the Holy Sacrament at St Peter’s
later demolished by Pope Paull III. Vasari claims that at this time Fra
Angelico was offered by Pope Nicholas V the archbishopric of Florence and that
he refused it, recommending another friar for the position. While the story
seems possible and even likely, if Vasari's date is correct, then the pope must
have been Eugenius and not Nicholas.
1447 - Fra Angelico was in Orvieto with his pupils, Benozzo Gozzoli and Zanobi Strozzi painting frescos for
the Cathedral before returning to the Vatican where he executed the frescoes
for the Niccoline chapel for Nicholas V. The scenes from the lives of the two
martyred deacons of the Early Church, Stephen and Lawrence, may have been
executed wholly or in part by assistants.
1449 -1452, Fra Angelico was back at his
old convent of Fiesole, where he was named Prior.
1455 - Fra Angelico died while staying at a Dominican Convent in
Rome, perhaps in order to work on Pope Nicholas' Chapel. He was buried in the
church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva.
1982 - Pope
John Paul II beatified Fra Angelico and in 1984 declared him patron of Catholic
artists.
Other artists in Musée Jacquemart-André
exhibition:
Lorenzo Monaco (Siena c. 1370 –
Florence 1424)
Battista de Biagio Sanguigni (Florence
1393-1451)
Gentile da Fabriano (Fabriano c. 1375 –
Rome 1427)
Masolino da Panicale (Panicale de
Valdarno 1383 – Florence c. 1440)
Paolo Ucello (Florence 1397-1475)
Filippo Lippi (Florence c. 1406 –
Spoletto 1469)
Zanobi Strozzi (Florence 1412-1468)
Domenico di Michelino (Florence
1417-1491)
Giovanni di Gonsalvo (mentioned
1435-38)
Benozzo Gozzoli (Florence c. 1421 –
Pistoia 1497)
Alesso Baldovinetti (Florence c.
1425-1499)
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