Fra Angelico, The Annunciation (Prado)

We're in Madrid, and we're looking at Fra Angelico's Annunciation. Now, the Annunciation by Fra Angelico that most people are familiar with is a fresco that's in San Marco in Florence. This is a painting that was made for a church not far from Florence. In Fiesole. It is extraordinary in that the frame is original, and so not only do you have the main panel, but you've got the predella underneath with all of its original framing elements. I'm not sure that I've ever seen that. These things were often taken apart and sold in pieces. We have an Old Testament scene of Adam and Eve being cast out of the Garden of Eden, or the expulsion, by an angel, and actually that scene is joined to the Annunciation scene because in the upper left we see the hands of God releasing this divine light, and a dove, which you can see just to the left of the column, which is the Holy Spirit. So we have actually the fall and then the reason for Christ's existence. And Adam and Eve as the precursors to Mary and Christ, so the man and woman who caused the fall from grace, and Mary and Christ who make salvation possible. And then we have God the Father looking down in an almost classical relief sculpture in the center, just above that column. The predella below is a very condensed series of scenes of the life of the Virgin Mary, from her birth to her marriage to Joseph, the visitation. Through to her death. Through to her death, that's right. And they are really meant, in a sense, the literal support for this later story. So stylistically, I think one of the things that really I find quite important is the sort of sense of quiet and solemnity that Fra Angelico is able to achieve. You have the angel who is bowing below Mary, his hands are crossed, which is a symbol of respective prayer. Mary reflects that with her own hands. I'm really taken by the density of the Garden of Eden. All of that fruit, those flowers, this wonderful sort of anti-perspectival field of flowers below the feet. And then you have this piece of stark architecture. They are both too large for the space that they occupy. Oh, absolutely. I think if Mary were to stand up, she would hit her head on the ceiling. I think so. But none of that is really important because this is a kind of reverential and invented exploration of beauty as a way of representing the divine. So this is painted contemporaneous with Masaccio painting the Brancacci Chapel. So we have two radically different approaches going on in Florence at the same time. And I think that's a good reminder that not everything in the Renaissance is this linear movement toward naturalism, but this kind of variety of styles. Whereas Masaccio was looking for a very almost mathematically accurate rendering. Here we see an artist who's looking to celebrate the decorative as a way of expressing the moral and the spiritual. And if you look, there's no cast shadows. There's not that kind of intense modeling that we see with Masaccio. There's not a lot of specificity to the faces and individuality in the faces. But there is specificity to the decorative. I mean, look at the wings of the angel for example. Or the gilding of their halos. Or just the foliage in the garden. It's quite sumptuous, isn't it? It is.