Fra Angelico's Annunciations...
3:50 p.m.
16/03/20 - Guido di Pietro, then Fra Giovanni da Fiesole Angelicus, was born in 1395 in Vicchio di Mugello, Tuscany. His works belong to the first years of the Quattroccento and he is known for one subject he did repeatedly: the Annunciation. The first one of these paintings is part of the permanent collection of the Museo del Prado and is dated ca.1426. The other version, from 1430, can be found at the Museo Diocesano in Cortona, Italy. The dates vary from author to author, so we sill consider those stated by the museums. There's a third version at the Convent of San Marcos in Florence, which we have posted before.
The Annunciation, by Fra Angélico (1426)
Technique: témpera on wood / Measures: 162 x 191 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid
The Annunciation, de Fra Angelico (1430)
Technique: temple painting on wood / Measures: 175 x180 cm
Museo Diocesano of Cortona, Italy
Angélico lived indoors for 20 years at the Convent of Fiesole in Florence and he poured himself into the religious writings of the time. This is why, to appreciate his paintings, we must ignore our mindset to fully understand his time in spite of the anachronism, as Georges Didi-Huberman explained in this book "Devant le temps".
It's the first years of the 15th Century and the works of the time are Gothic and the bodies in the paintings look weightless, as a way to express their immateriality. Fra Angelico will repeat this in these two Annunciations: figures with no physical weight and no individuality (men and women are alike) although, almost around the corner of the Convent, Masaccio broke apart from the Quattoccento with his fresco at Santa María Novella.
But back to Fra Angelico, the scriptures of the time considered Mary as the image of chastity and shyness, and this is precisely what the artist wanted to depict. However, in both paintings, the notion of space, both objective and scientific, is still mysterious.
In the second painting Angélico writes the words that come from the Angel's and the Virgin's mouth in golden letters. While the first one announces: Spiritus sanctus superveniet en te, Mary answers: Ecce ancilla Domini, fiat mihi secundum verbun tuum. And the Angel replies: virtus Altissimi obumbrabit tibi.
(To be continued...)
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