Fra Angelico1450
The Madonna of the Shadows
The 'Madonna delle Ombre' — the corridor fresco at San Marco in which the cast shadows of the painted pilasters reach across the Virgin's throne. A landmark moment in the Renaissance study of light.
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About Fra Angelico
1395-1455 · Italian
Fra Angelico (Guido di Pietro; Beato Angelico) was a Dominican friar of San Domenico (Fiesole) and later San Marco (Florence). His gold-ground panel altarpieces (the Prado and Cortona Annunciations, the Linaioli Tabernacle, the Louvre Coronation) and the small meditative frescoes he painted in the cells of San Marco — begun in 1438 under Prior Antoninus — made him the defining early Renaissance painter of contemplative prayer. He painted the Chapel of Nicholas V in the Vatican Palace between 1447 and 1449. Beatified in 1982.