Christmas…and Art!
Monday, December 11, 2017 at 9:00AM 
Fra Angelico - Archangel Gabriel Annunciate - 1431-33 - Tempera and gold on panel, 31 x 26 cm - Institute of Arts, Detroit (click photo for larger image)
Fra Angelico - Virgin Mary Annunciate - 1431-33 - Tempera and gold on panel, 31 x 26 cm - Institute of Arts, Detroit (click photo for larger image)Throughout December What About Art? will be featuring works centered on the Christmas story—painted by the greatest masters in the history of art. Our first focus will be on the Annunciation, the announcement by the angel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary of her conception of Christ.
Florentine painter Fra Angelico (ca. 1400-1455) was a Dominican friar, originally named Guido di Pietro. Although in popular tradition he has been seen as “not an artist properly so-called but an inspired saint” (Ruskin), Angelico was in fact a highly professional artist, who was in touch with the most advanced developments in contemporary Florentine art. In later life he travelled extensively for prestigious commissions.
Fra Angelico combined the influence of the elegantly decorative International Gothic style with the more realistic style of such early Renaissance masters as the painter Masaccio and the sculptors Donatello and Ghiberti, all of whom worked in Florence. Fra Angelico's representation of devout facial expressions and his use of color to heighten emotion are particularly effective. You can read more about him on this site.
Two panels at the Institute of Arts in Detroit, Michigan represent the Annunciation at the moment when the angel Gabriel greets the Virgin. She responds in a gesture of humble acceptance, crossing her arms over her chest. In her right hand she holds a small red bound book. She has marked the place by her finger.
The original provenance and function of these two panels is uncertain. Though they are clearly fragments, it has never been ascertained whether they had been cut out of a larger composition, were the subsidiary part of an altarpiece, or constituted the wings of a diptych.
On another note, What About Art? wish a Happy Hanukkah to all of you celebrating this week!
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