Sixth Sunday of Lent - Entombment

Title: Entombment
Artist: Fra Angelico
Medium: Tempera on wood
Size: 38 x 46 cm
Date: 1438-40
Location: Alte Pinakothek, Munich.

John 19:41-42 - At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had ever been laid. Because it was the Jewish day of Preparation and since the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there.

This panel was part of the altarpiece of the main altar in the monastery church of San Marco, Florence, and was originally in the middle of its predella. Christ's body is supported by Nicodemus, and his hands are held and kissed by the stooping Virgin and St John. Christ has a weightless air about him, so that the three other figures appear to have to do little to support him. The winding cloth lies stretched out in a receding rectangle creating the foreground space, its folds and color echoing the white rock. Behind lies the dark rectangular void of the tomb. The sparsity and simplicity of the composition, the firmly closed-off space and the extensive use of white in this panel, are all also found in Angelico's frescoes at San Marco. The figures here, arranged parallel with each other, with the central perspective of the shroud leading to the tomb, shows a very different idea of spatial organization from that in Rogier van der Weyden's panel of the same subject.

Fra Angelico (c. 1395 – February 1455), was a Florentine painter as well as a Dominican friar, having entered a Dominican convent in Fiesole in 1418. He rose from obscure beginnings as a journeyman illuminator to the renown of an artist whose last major commissions were monumental fresco cycles in St Peter’s and the Vatican Palace, Rome. Within his lifetime or shortly thereafter he was also called Il Beato (the Blessed), in reference to his skills in painting religious subjects. In 1982 Pope John Paul II conferred beatification, in recognition of the holiness of his life, thereby making this title official.

The Naming of St John the Baptist

Title: The Naming of St John the Baptist
Artist: Fra Angelico
Medium: Tempera and gold on panel
Size: 26 x 24 cm
Date: 1434-35
Location: Museo di San Marco, Florence.

Luke 1:59-80: On the eighth day, they came to have the child circumcised. They were going to name him Zechariah, like his father. But his mother spoke up. "No!" she said. "He must be called John." They said to her, "No one among your relatives has that name." Then they motioned to his father. They wanted to find out what he would like to name the child. He asked for something to write on. Then he wrote, "His name is John." Everyone was amazed. Right away Zechariah could speak again. His first words gave praise to God. The neighbors were all filled with fear and wonder. All through Judea's hill country, people were talking about all these things. Everyone who heard this wondered about it. And because the Lord was with John, they asked, "What is this child going to be?" His father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit. He prophesied... "And you, my child, will be called a prophet of the Most High God. You will go ahead of the Lord to prepare the way for him... "

The choice of the surprising name indicates that a major lesson of obedience has been learned: when God names a child, that child is significant in his plan. The protest of the crowd shows that they are unaware of what God is doing. Surely the father of the house will not sanction this breaking of custom. So they motion to Zechariah to find out what the name of the child should be. By repeating the name his wife gave, Zechariah echoes the instructions of the angel, not the crowd and custom. He goes the way of God and amazes his neighbors. His obedience yields additional reward: his tongue is loosed immediately and judgment ends. Just as the angel promised in Luke 1:20, the temporary situation of silence ends with the fulfillment of God's word. The point of the linkage is not to be missed: believe and know that God fulfills his promises.

This painting is one of four panels in various collections which belonged originally to the predella of an unidentified altarpiece. The panels illustrate stories from the legends of the Virgin Mary, the apostle St James the Great, St John the Baptist, and Sts Francis and Dominic. The fifth panel of the predella is lost. The altarpiece would have shown the Virgin and Child and the same saints whose scenes are depicted in the predella. The predella panels show the influence of Masaccio's frescoes in the Brancacci Chapel, specific derivations from them can be detected in most scenes.

Fra Angelico (c. 1395 – February, 1455), was a Florentine painter as well as a Dominican friar, having entered a Dominican convent in Fiesole in 1418. He became known as Giovanni da Fiesole, as well as Fra Giovanni Angelico (Brother Giovanni the Angelic One). Although his teacher is unknown, he apparently began his career as an illuminator of missals and other religious books, and then began to paint altarpieces and other panels. In later life he traveled extensively for prestigious commissions.

Christ in Limbo

Title: Christ in Limbo

Artist: Fra Angelico

Medium: Fresco

Size: 183 x 166 cm

Date: c. 1450

Location: Florence, Cloister, cell 31, Museo di San Marco.

Christ’s Descent into Hell, or Descent into Limbo, is a legend not depicted in any of the canonical Gospels. One of the first written references can be found in the Apocryphal text, the Gospel of Nicodemus. Before his bodily Resurrection, Jesus descended into Hell and led the just, the patriarchs, the prophets of the Old Testament and Adam and Eve, into the light. Later, a clarity was introduced that they had not been in Hell at all, but in the bordering region, Limbo (from the Latin word limbus, a hem); it was taught that because they lived and died before the Christ's self-sacrifice for peoples redemption, they were put in the lower place until such time when Jesus could liberate them.

In ‘Christ in Limbo’, Christ, as Conqueror, enters through the gate, which has fallen flat at His approach, beneath it Lucifer lies crushed, the impersonation of death and sin. The Saviour stretches forth His hand to Abraham, the father of the faithful, foremost among the vast multitude of "spirits in prison," who have so long awaited His coming. Among these can be seen Adam and Eve. The Italian critics look upon it as a marvelous rendering of the well-known passage in the Inferno (Canto IV, 54 et seq).

Fra Angelico (c. 1395 – February 18, 1455), was a Florentine painter as well as a Dominican friar, having entered a Dominican convent in Fiesole in 1418. He rose from obscure beginnings as a journeyman illuminator to the renown of an artist whose last major commissions were monumental fresco cycles in St Peter’s and the Vatican Palace, Rome. Within his lifetime or shortly thereafter he was also called Il Beato (the Blessed), in reference to his skills in painting religious subjects. In 1982 Pope John Paul II conferred beatification, in recognition of the holiness of his life, thereby making this title official.

Annunciation

Title: Annunciation

Artist: Andrea del Sarto

Medium: Oil on wood

Size: 96 x 189 cm

Date: 1528

Location: Galleria Palatina (Palazzo Pitti), Florence.

In the New Testament, the Annunciation is narrated in the Gospel of Luke 1:26-38. The text reads “the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the descendants of David; and the virgin's name was Mary. And coming in, he said to her, ‘Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.’" And so began the conversation where Mary is told of her conception of Christ, but when she asks the angel, "How can this be, since I am a virgin?” she is told “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.”

Del Sarto's painting is reported to have originally been in the form of a lunette, but was transformed to a rectangle at an unknown period. Regardless, in a supremely poetic range of changing colors, from yellow to pink to lilac to purple, The Annunciation expresses Andrea del Sarto's new taste. In this mature painting he no longer favors the intense and highly charged palette of the preceding years, but chooses delicate harmonies, without dissonances, and refined accords which give the composition a new balance, more quiet and refined than before. Gabriel is shown holding the traditional lily stalk signifying Mary's religious mind, the leaves her humility, the white petals her virginity and it's scent her divinity.

Andrea del Sarto (1486 – 1531) was an Italian painter from Florence, whose career flourished during the High Renaissance and early-Mannerism. Though highly regarded by his contemporaries as an artist "senza errori" (i.e., faultless), he is overshadowed now by equally talented contemporaries like Raphael. He was the best painter (as opposed to draughtsman) in 16th-century Florence, and had more feeling for tone and colors than any of his contemporaries south of Venice.

Transfiguration

Title: Transfiguration

Artist: Fra Angelico

Medium: Fresco

Size: 93 x 164 cm

Date: 1440-41

Location: Convento di San Marco, Florence.

As described in Matthew 17:1-5: “After six days Jesus took Peter, James, and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. And he was transfigured before them; his face shone like the sun and his clothes became white as light. And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, conversing with him.” This fresco, located on the wall of Cell 6 in the convent of San Marco, Florence, is one in a series created by Angelico to decorate the cloister, chapter house, and entrances to the 20 cells on the upper corridors.

Christ stands on a rock with his arms outstretched, prefiguring his own crucifixion and his rising from the tomb. He is voluminously clad in a sculptural mass of glowing white robe, and encircled by a radiant white mandorla. At the edge of the fresco, on either side, stand the Virgin and St Dominic in positions indicative of prayer, stern and unresponsive to events around them. The heads of Moses and Elijah appear as well, as detached symbols to aid meditation. There is no attempt to create any more than the bare essentials of picture and space which could detract from the image’s power.

Fra Angelico (c. 1395 – February 18, 1455), was a Florentine painter as well as a Dominican friar, having entered a Dominican convent in Fiesole in 1418. He became known as Giovanni da Fiesole, as well as Fra Giovanni Angelico (Brother Giovanni the Angelic One). Although his teacher is unknown, he apparently began his career as an illuminator of missals and other religious books, and then began to paint altarpieces and other panels. In later life he traveled extensively for prestigious commissions.