December 12 - A History of Art - Fra Angelico - The Annunciation

Fra Angelico, (c. 1395 – February 18, 1455) was an Early Italian Renaissance painter, referred to in Vasari's Lives of the Artists as having "a rare and perfect talent".

Fra Angelico was a Dominican monk within a teaching order, and his work served a didactic rather than purely mystical purpose. His style is simple. In 1438, he and his assistants began painting a series of 50 frescoes to decorate the monks' cells at the monastery of San Marco in Florence. The Annuciation is one of these frescoes.

The frescoes were created as aids to prayer and contemplation. Their straightforward composition, limited color, and lack of superfluous detail give them a humble grandeur and serenity. Although Fra Angelico uses the realism and perspectival techniques learned from Masaccio, his haloes and wings are flat, painted in the Gothic Style.

Fra Angelico was later commissioned to work at the Vatican, where his frescoes were more ornate, with an emphasis on narrative and detail and that was deemed more appropriate for a public place.

Fra Angelico was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1982