Fra Angelico
Category: Books,Arts & Photography,History & Criticism
Fra Angelico Details
From Library Journal In this sumptuous, scholarly volume, the life of Dominican friar and artist Fra Angelico (1400-55) is presented in the context of his work. Spike (Massaccio, LJ 6/1/96) divides his book into three sections: life and work, color plates (with commentary), and a black-and-white catalog. He records the influences that shaped Angelico's life and work, notably the emergence of the Humanists, the Council of Florence (1440), Cosimo de' Medici, and the library at San Marco, and also presents important original findings on Angelico's fresco cycles in the cloister of San Marco, Florence. Recent investigations of others, including Georges Didi-Huberman's Fra Angelico: Dissemblance and Figuration (LJ 2/1/96), are carefully referenced in the footnoted text. While there is not yet a catalogue raisonee, this difficult but rewarding book, with its many quality illustrations and fresh perspective, offers a complex overview for informed readers. ?Ellen Bates, New YorkCopyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. Read more Review . . . Spike's beautifully illustrated monograph . . . presents the clearest interpretation of his career to date. -- Choice, 11/97. . . engaging, superbly illustrated and catalogued . . . -- Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel, 12/14/97. . . sumptuous . . . this rewarding book, with its many quality illustrations and fresh perspective, offers a complex overview for informed readers. -- Library Journal, 8/97 Read more From the Back Cover Called "Angelico" for his inimitable depictions of paradise, this artist (1400?-1455) and Dominican friar succeeded Masaccio as the foremost painter of the early Renaissance in Italy. Fra Angelico's painting has been beloved for centuries since as an emblem of the flowering genius of quattrocento Florence. In his engaging new appraisal, John Spike reveals the unexpectedly innovative qualities of Angelico's art, including his use of linear and geometric perspective (even before the publication of Leon Battista Alberti's famous treatise). Another of Angelico's inventions was the Renaissance altar-piece known as the sacra conversazione (sacred conversation), in which the Virgin and Child and saints, formerly each rigidly enclosed in separate panels, now gesture and relate to each other within a clearly unified space. In this volume Spike presents a major discovery: the secret program of the forty frescoes in the cells of the Dominican monastery of San Marco in Florence. All previous studies of this artist had concluded that the subjects and arrangement of these frescoes, the artist's masterworks, were chosen at random, or by the friars themselves. Instead, as the author now shows, Fra Angelico drew upon the mystical writings of the early church fathers to construct a spiritual exercise organized into three ascending levels of enlightenment. The San Marco frescoes can finally be seen as not only the most extensive cycle of works by any single painter of this century, but indeed the most complete pictorial expression of Renaissance theology. This essential volume contains an extensive essay on the artist's life and work, followed by large color plates with detailed discussions of individual works. Finally, a catalog presents the artist's oeuvre, as revised by the author's new attributions. With lavish details of Angelico's works and an up-to-date bibliography, this volume is not only a feast for the eyes but an indispensable resource for anyone interested in this critical period of the Renaissance. Read more About the Author John T. Spike, who received his doctorate in art history from Harvard University in 1979, is a noted authority on Italian paintings and drawings of the fifteenth through the eighteenth centuries. He is the author of eight books, most recently Caravaggio and Fra Angelico, both by Abbeville Press. Spike has served as the curator of international loan exhibitions of Italian art for major museums in Italy, Germany, and the United States. General Editor of The Illustrated Bartsch, he lives in Florence and is a frequent contributor to art journals, especially FMR and Storia dell'Arte. Read more
Reviews
Many years ago, I acquired a large, very old art print in a gilt frame from a century-old Dominican convent in Northern California that had burned down accidentally during restoration. The Dominican nuns had decided to disperse all of their accumulated artworks and build a new convent. I was never able to identify the original artist, until one day I came across an Italian publication from the mid-1960's entitled "Forma E Colore: L'Angelico a San Marco" by Luciano Berti. As it turned out, my large, beautiful print was of Fra Angelico's "The Coronation of the Virgin" from Cell #9 in the Convent of San Marco. But the limited text in the publication was all in Italian, so I never learned much else about the stunning cycle of frescoes at San Marco in Florence that the book protrayed.Last week, I acquired this truly amazing book that surveys Fra Angelico's complete life, influences and work in exquisite detail. I can't put it down! The reproductions of the artwork are truly breath taking. Many pages contain details from some of the larger pieces, allowing for a deeper appreciation for the artwork. I suspect no one would be permitted to examine them this closely if seen in person. The third section of the book gives a complete listing, with thumbnail prints in black and white, of each of the artist's known works. A detailed provenance of each work is listed, including where in the world one can find that particular work today. Another reviewer bemoaned the thumbnails, but I suspect this book would have been prohibitively expensive if all of the works had been portrayed in color and in a larger format.The extraordinary care with which the author describes exactly how the frescoes of San Marco are arranged throughout the convent brings the entire ancient building to life. One can actually begin to imagine the milieu within which those 14th century Dominican friars and lay brothers led their daily lives there. (In "The Coronation of the Virgin" there are 6 saints witnessing the event. Over time, I was able to identify 5 of the 6 saints. One saint has a blood-red splotch atop his bare head and no one could figure out who he was. Even the Dominican nuns couldn't identify him. They joked that they just called him "St. Gorbachev". Mr. Spike carefully identifies each figure in each painting. So I discovered that this particular figure is important in Dominican iconography: he is St. Peter Martyr. I enjoyed finding this detail out.)Mr. Spike succinctly describes the blossoming of humanism both within Florence and throughout the Catholic hierarchy that led to the burst of sublime art that began to appear in 14th century Florence and throughout Northern Italy. He explains how Fra Angelico grew organically out of these influences, both theologically and artistically. He demystifies Fra Angelico and presents the man, the artist and the dedicated Dominican friar. This book has intelligently enriched my appreciation of this artist and the world he lived in.
