Fra Angelico's Annunciations... (Part II)
12:00 a.m.
19/03/20 - The mystery of the Annunciation must have presented both a challenge and a contradiction to Fra Angelico. A challenge because depicting a “happening” is rather uncomfortable when painting and a contradiction because, according to the Sacred Scriptures, the encounter between the Angel and the Virgin is mental and not physical. Horacio Bollini in “Fra Angélico y el silencio” explains this situation and the challenge the Monk faces for believers to see.
The Annunciation, by Fra Angélico (1426)
Technique: témpera on wood / Measures: 162 x 191 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid
La Anunciación, by Fra Angelico (1430)
Technique: temple paint on wood / Measures: 175 x180 cm
Museo Diocesano de Cortona, Italy
The idilic garden (Eden) is similar in both paintings: the cypress tree, the palm tree and the flowers. It's not a supporting space, but a metaphysical one, which shows that the mindset of the monk had a theological rooting.
The light is not optical, it only reflects its divine origin, spread in the air. He works as with a stained glass, with the bright colors achieved through the use of lapislazuli and blue. He doesn't skimp on the use of gold or malachite either. For all the colors he uses pure pigments, he does not “stain” them with others nor draws shadows.
The scenes are intimate, cloistered, as the life he leads, with arches and simple architecture. The geometry is rigid but the perspective is flexible: Fra Angélico blends the painter of the Renaissance with the monk of the late Gotic era.
As German philosopher Theodor Ludwig Wiesengrund Adorno explained, the art of Fra Angélico manifests as owner of the “non existent”.
Keep reading... 'Fra Angélico y el silencio" by Horacio Bollini, CABA, Editorial Las Cuarenta, 2016.
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