Analysis on Fra Angelico's Painting "The Annunciation":

The Annunciation of Cortona is a panel-painting altarpiece or retable by Fra Angelico: once housed in the Church of Gesù of Cortona, it is now held at the Museo del Prado in the city of Madrid

HistoryThe Annunciation of Cortona was painted by Fra Angelico in 1433-1434, in tempera on panel, 175 cm x 180 cm.

This is one of three Annunciations by Fra Angelico on the table (the other two are in the Prado Museum, and the Museo della Basilica di Santa Maria delle Grazie, in San Giovanni Valdarno. Two others, in fresco, are found in the convent of San Marco, Florence, at the top of the access stairs and the third cell.

There are also scenes of the theme combined with Adoration of the Magi at the Museum San Marco, and a diptych in the Galleria Nazionale dell'Umbria.

ThemeThe scene is typical of Christian iconography, "The Annunciation to Mary by the Archangel Gabriel", is described in the Gospels and in great detail in The Golden Legend of Jacobus de Voragine, the reference book of painters of the Renaissance, which can be represented in all its symbolic (walled garden column, the presence of the Holy Spirit, an evocation of Adam and Eve expelled from Paradise).

This work is the main panel of a polyptych work, which includes a multi predella panels with scenes from the Life of the Virgin at the same Annunciazione di San Giovanni Valdarno:

Marriage of the Virgin,
Adoration of the Magi,
Presentation in the Temple,
Dormition.

They are also attributed to Zanobi Strozzi, an assistant of Fra Angelico.

On the left, the scene of invoking the original sin, is consistent with the principles of the Christian iconography of the painting: the pair of Adam and Eve expelled from Paradise is situated outside the walled garden of Mary, set off on a hill beyond a fence.

Conversely from other Annunciations of Fra Angelico, the vanishing point of perspective is in focus monofocal the left of the table.

The painting – unlike many of the versions by other painters – also lacks the range of symbolic objects that would have reminded onlookers of Mary's chastity: lilies, chasuble, the carafe, the washbasin. Instead, we have a plain wooden fence marking the boundary of a garden in which small spring flowers seem to be growing. Behind that fence Tuscan cypresses are flourishing. There is no holy book on Mary's lap. Instead, she and the angel have their arms folded modestly, one mirroring the other, over their chests in the sign of the cross. Mary sits on a plain-looking wooden stool – it looks more like a milking stool than the kind of splendid object that the mother of the saviour of the world might be expected to occupy. There is a strange stillness about the scene. They look into each other's eyes. They do not seem about to speak. There is nothing more than that. Yet that seems to be sufficient. Mary does not seem to be troubled. If anything, she looks serenely accepting. The colour of their clothing – the extremely delicate pale pink of the angel's robe matches the garment on Mary's upper half – once again lacks the kind of fanfare that give to so many religious paintings of these times their atmosphere of almost otherworldly opulence.

The figures are painted shallowly, harking back to pre-Renaissance painters. This lack of depth contributes to the simplicity of the scene. The whole scene is a masterpiece of quiet understatement. (Analysis on Fra Angelico's Painting "The Annunciation" )

Biography of Fra Angelico:

Fra Angelico (born in Guido di Pietro; c. 1395– February 18, 1455) was an Early Italian Renaissance painter described by Vasari in his Lives of the Artists as having "a rare and perfect talent".

Fra Angelico  was known to contemporaries as Fra Giovanni da Fiesole (Brother John of Fiesole) and Fra Giovanni Angelico (Angelic Brother John). In modern Italian he is called il Beato Angelico (Blessed Angelic One); the common English name Fra Angelico means the "Angelic friar".

In 1982 Pope John Paul II proclaimed his beatification, in recognition of the holiness of his life, thereby making the title of "Blessed" official. Fiesole is sometimes misinterpreted as being part of his formal name, but it was merely the name of the town where he took his vows as a Dominican friar, and was used by contemporaries to separate him from other Fra Giovannis. He is listed in the Roman Martyrology as Beatus Ioannes Faesulanus, cognomento Angelicus—"Blessed Giovanni of Fiesole, known as 'the Angelic' ".

Refer to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fra_Angelico / http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annunciation_of_Cortona

Tags: Fra Angelico's "The Annunciation" --Analysis

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