Volume 53, Number 1 · January 12, 2006
The Pious Revolutionary
By Andrew Butterfield
Fra Angelico
Catalog of the exhibition by Laurence Kanter and Pia Palladino, with contributions by Magnolia Scudieri, Carl Brandon Strehlke, Victor M. Schmidt, and Anneke de Vries
an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, October 26, 2005–January 29, 2006.
Metropolitan Museum of Art/Yale University Press, 336 pp., $65.00; $45.00 (paper)
The Fra Angelico show now on view in New York is among the most provocative exhibitions of a Renaissance artist in recent years. It attempts no less than to revise the history of Florentine painting in the 1420s, a period universally regarded as a turning point in European art. According to the traditional account, during that decade Masaccio almost single-handedly created the new style of Renaissance painting, a style characterized by naturalistic images of lifelike figures portrayed in convincing perspective. By contrast Fra Angelico has usually been seen as a painter who, for all his technical accomplishment, stood apart from the artistic revolution started by Masaccio. The show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art discards that interpretation and presents a new view of Fra Angelico and Florentine painting.
Review, 4511 words
To read the full text of this piece, please choose one of the following options:
|
If you are already a subscriber to the Review's electronic edition, please sign in: |
To subscribe to the electronic edition, please press the button below. |
To purchase access to this article for $3, please press the button below. |