The Annunciation and Baxandall

Annunciation
Fra Angelico, The Annunciation, 1445

Spoiler alert: “Most fifteenth-century paintings are religious pictures” (Baxandall 40).

Now that we’ve all recovered from that shocker, let’s move on. It’s not surprising that in the study of Renaissance art history, one is bombarded with countless Madonna and Childs and innumerable Crucifixions. You might think the artists didn’t have any creativity, or that 15th-century life wasn’t interesting enough to paint anything else, but there was a clear-cut reason for the abundance of religious paintings: instruction. In the days when the Church controlled the commission and production of art, art became a tool to educate the general public about their own religion. It was a way to envision stories so that people could better understand them, and to create a spark of interest and spark religious fervor in their minds.

But, how? An artist cannot just paint a religious scene however they want. An artist’s rendition of a scene must be ambiguous to appeal to many people’s internal visions, but succinct enough to keep a clear meaning. It wasn’t easy. Artists were expected to produce art that would excite, compel, and educate viewers. With the notion that the viewers of religious artwork were primarily ignorant and uneducated common folk, art could not be too complicated. One pope put it like this,“What a book is to those who can read, a picture is to the ignorant people who look at it,” (Baxandall 41). With the Bible as the book in question, artists did not have a lot of leeway in their art. Perhaps that is why so many Annunciations look so similar.

Take Fra Angelico’s rendition. The artist rendered the well-known story simply, with vibrant colors and interesting detail. The faces of Mary and Gabriel show little emotion, which allows viewers to decide what Mary was feeling when she received the big news. The reasoning behind this ambiguity is that, “The public mind was not a blank tablet on which the painters’ representation of a story could impress themselves; it was an active institution of interior visualization with which every painter had to get along” (Baxandall 45). No matter how Fra Angelico thought the story went – his art was for the public so it had to follow a certain code of objectivity. With this in mind, paintings that were once blank and emotionless transform into opportunities for imagination and personal interpretation.
  • 7:00 AM

Penitent St. Jerome

Fra Angelico
Fra Angelico, Penitent St. Jerome, 1424

Throughout the year, our class has looked at a plethora of pieces of art. I might say that we have become accustomed to whenever we see a lion in a painting, that it must be St. Jerome in the work. I was wondering why that was. 

In the 4th century, Jerome lived in a monastery with other monks. One day, a lion limped into the monastery. The monks ran away except for Jerome, who approached it and upon examination, discovered a thorn in the lion's paw. Traditionally a thorn represents sin, as in the crown of thorns Jesus was forced to wear during his crucifixion. Jerome manages to remove the thorn, which makes the lion tame, and symbolically baptizes the lion. 

The story of St. Jerome and the lion speaks to me as it exhibits the rewards of facing your fears. The other monks ran away from the lion but Jerome faced the fear of a grown lion possibly attacking him. He healed the lion in turn endearing it to him. While standing up to my fears appears to be a good maxim to live my life, it also requires a certain amount of common sense as well. Walking straight up to a lion would probably not be the best decision I could make. And so I learn from St. Jerome that fear, although it is frightening, can be overcome.

  • 7:00 AM

Noli Mi Tangere

Fra Angelico
Fra Angelico, Noli Mi Tangere, 1442

So much swag oozes out of Jesus that if a man touched him, money would rain from the sky but as the man bent over to pick it up, the money would turn into five loaves of bread and two fish. Jesus would then touch these and they would transform into enough food to feed five thousand people. Jesus possesses too much power for any man or woman to touch him. He heals men of leprosy, paralysis, and even cleanses souls. This predates any form of modern medicine, making Jesus the first super doctor.

One of his earlier works, Noli Mi Tangere. Fra Angelico begins to experiment with perspective and introducing nature elements. He adds dimensionality to the tomb in which Jesus was buried by making the hole appear more than black oil on a wall, but rather a doorway into the unknown. I find it remarkable how Angelico can make piece of a wall appear multi-dimensional simply by altering the shading and the curving lines. He shades the upper portions of the overhang darker to signify shadows and how the light does not hit it. The grass shows how meticulous Angelico forces himself to be with extreme detail with each blade of grass and flower petal. I can distinctly see each cluster of weeds and tree branch full of leaves. Frangelico, too, oozes swag.

  • 7:00 AM

Beauty in Death: Martyrdom of Saint Cosmas and Damian

Fra Angelico
Beauty in Death
An Investigation of the Divine Demise 
Curated by Tommy Dunn

Fra Angelico, Martyrdom of Saints Cosmas and Damian, 1430

The twin brothers Cosmas and Damian traveled the Mediterranean healing people for free and extolling the virtues of the Christian faith. They famously healed a wounded white man in Africa by grafting a dead black man’s leg onto his below the knee. Despite their good works and the love they met wherever they went, they fell victim to Diocletian’s purges. They were captured and ordered to recant Christianity. Their captors tortured them endlessly and heinously in every way they could dream up—still to no avail. Finally, the exasperated local leader of the purges decides to behead the duo along with several of their brothers who supported them to the end.

Fra Angelico’s use of color here really brings out the scene for me. The sanguine, menacing reds of the blood and the outfits of several of the figures contrast with the cool, comfortable blues that permeate the painting. I have always liked Fra Angelico’s color schemes. He uses a simple palate, and yet I think that his color scheme is every bit as powerful as the more nuanced colors of the masters who came after him. His colors make bold statements—what they lack in complexity they make up for in power. This painting falls slightly outside the normal bounds of the theme that I have chosen. While it of course depicts martyrdom, the saints here have already been beheaded. There is no moment of salvation or connection with the divine. However, this painting shows that art can take a truly ugly scene such as this, where no redemption is present, and transform it into something beautiful while still getting the meaning of the story across. That is the power of Fra Angelico’s painting. Even in a brutal scene like this, he finds beauty.

  • 7:00 AM

Pieta

Fra Angelico

Fra Angelico, Pieta,  1440-1445

Pieta, or Lamentation, by Fra Angelico, depicts the entombment of Christ. Fra Angelico does an excellent job here of conveying a sense of sadness. The rectangular void of the tomb yawns wide, waiting to accept Christ’s body. In addition to darkening the tone of the painting, the sepulcher creates a sense of gravity. The hole seems to drag the background of the painting and all of the characters towards it. Nicodemus, a Pharisee sympathetic to Jesus’ cause, drags him into the tomb. Even though he is not actually a follower of Jesus, his face still betrays a deep agony. When looked at close up, the eyes in particular haunt the viewer. St. John the Evangelist flanks Jesus to his left. St. John holds Jesus’ hand close to his face as his eyes well up with tears. Fra Angelico paints this work in his typical style, displaying a mastery of perspective, with all lines vanishing into the middle of the tomb. The bright colors and sharp lines cause the painting to pop, lending Angelico’s work his typical vivacity. The shading is beautiful—Fra Angelico does a particularly good job on the blanket beneath Jesus.

Fra Angelico’s work here exemplifies the new style of painting that accompanied the Renaissance. The trees flanking the tomb lose their form and gravitate toward the center of the canvas as they recede, creating the illusion of perspective. This single innovation represents a huge improvement over the works of older masters such as Giotto. Fra Angelico’s characters also benefit from Renaissance discoveries. A new knowledge of human proportions, as Da Vinci lays out in his notebooks, lends Angelico’s figures life and allows the viewer to feel immersed. While he stands tall on the work of previous artists such as Giotto and Duccio, Fra Angelico’s groundbreaking work with perspective and shape epitomizes the spirit of the Renaissance and represents a major step forward for western art.

  • 7:00 AM

Man of Sorrows

Aaron Dupuis
Fra Angelico, Man of Sorrows, 1443
Now, I'm no expert on Jesus paintings, but Man of Sorrows by Fra Angelico has got to be one of the cooler ones out there. For once it wasn't the content or message of the work that drew my attention, but rather the boldfaced weirdness of it all. The use of black in the background is startling, especially given the ambiguity that surrounds its context. Is that the night sky, or a metaphorical space in which the scenes of the Passion of Christ may be displayed?

The scenes themselves borrow elements from Fra Angelico's other works that line the walls of the San Marco. Incredibly detailed and surreally arranged in the negative space, the scenes do not seem to adhere to any particular pattern or linear story. Rather they seek to evoke an emotion. They tell the story of Christ's betrayal and crucifixion in fragments: The Judas kiss, the nails used to crucify Jesus, the payment of 30 silver pieces to Judas Iscariot, the taunting of Christ. It is also notable that the work depicts an empty cross, with two streaks of blood running from the nails, still stuck fast into the wood.

In portraying the resurrection of Christ in this way, Fra Angelico seeks to portray a triumphant portrait, praising the Man of Sorrow for the trials he faced. As modern viewers, whether we buy the biblical story or not, at the very least we should find a sense of victory in the piece: an ultimate sacrifice for a cause outside of the self.

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