Fra Angelico Accomplishments

1183 Words5 Pages

Many people don 't know about Fra Angelico, the early Renaissance painter who lived in Italy. He painted over eighty paintings over the course of his life. Along with his artistic career, Fra was a Dominican friar. In addition, he used his art to make churches beautiful and to help spread their teachings. However, he didn 't sign his work because he thought that his art should be used to glorify God, rather than to gain personal fame. In addition, Fra didn 't fix any of his past paintings because he thought the way they turned out was the way that God had willed the work to come out. Strangely enough, Fra Angelico went by many names, such as Guido di Pietro, which was his actual name. He took on many other names over the course of his …show more content…

Fra Angelico used his vast artistic abilities to help spread Christian teachings and messages about life. He took his vows to become a friar in the town Fiesole, around 1423. Since Fra was a friar, he became very passionate about religion. Some people mistakenly add Fiesole as part of his name when referring to Fra as a friar, but as stated above, the town of Fiesole was simply where he took his vows. In addition, Fra was a very skilled artist, and this shows through his magnificent artwork. Numerous rich clients such as Cosimo de Medici asked him to decorate the walls of churches, and do a number of personal works for them as well (Finocchio). In the churches he was asked to work in, he decorated the walls with various religious scenes and made many altarpieces to use around the church to further advance their teachings. Fra Angelico 's paintings and frescoes on the walls made the churches look more wealthy and beautiful as well. Almost every single one of his works was of something or someone religious. He had painted many portraits of saints, Madonna, Mary, Jesus, and many of the other very important people in the Bible. Fra used a wide variety of techniques to make his art …show more content…

Fra Angelico used his flowing lines to his advantage. Many of his frescoes, paintings, and altarpieces have smooth, graceful, and flowing lines that make the artwork flow nicely and have a graceful air about the subjects. Lastly, Fra Angelico used his color very wisely. He made the colors bright, so that when someone saw the artwork, the first thing they would see was the richness and the quality of the color. He used color to make his figures pop from the scene, so that the viewer could see what was happening clearly. Fra even used color to portray emotion in his artwork, and many have been moved by the emotion that is inside ("Fra Angelico" Wikipedia). In addition, Fra always was playing with the new techniques that were coming out as people started creating more art during the course of the early Renaissance. Fra 's use of his bright colors, emotion, graceful, flowing lines, and linear perspective is what made his paintings so sought after during the early