Born in 1395 and working for most of his life in Florence during the early Renaissance Fra Angelico was unusual, though not unique, in being a painter who was also a cleric. Although he engaged with the revolutionary developments that marked Renaissance art – notably, an interest in ancient Roman sculpture and the application of linear perspective – his own painting retained the almost naïve charm of an earlier period. His shy Madonnas fondly holding a rosy-cheeked Christ Child and demure saints lost in thought are conveyed without apparent artifice in a range of enamel bright colours or in pastel shades in fresco. Exquisitely designed and painstakingly crafted, these images convey a simple innocence of a type much favoured by the producers of Christmas cards. But, his paintings are not merely superficially beautiful. At the convent of San Marco, one of the most serene places in all of Florence, Angelico produced a series of paintings to teach and encourage the friars among whom he lived. These paintings, when decoded, reveal layers of spiritual and intellectual content about how to live a Christian life. Although he spent most of his life at San Marco his reputation soon spread and lead to commissions from elsewhere including an invitation from the Pope to decorate a room in the Vatican.

This lecture will consider the full range of Angelico’s painting in the context of early Renaissance Florence. It will examine his style and aesthetic impact in relation to the work of contemporary artists such as Uccello, Masaccio and Donatello and it will explain the underlying meanings in some of the frescoes at San Marco.