Fra Angelico’s frescoes represent a revolutionary moment in the development of the Renaissance and Western Art. He was an active participant in the renaissance of the arts that took place in Florence and which formulated a new way of seeing that, in time, came to dominate Western art until the modern age. Using psychology and perspective, Fra Angelico’s frescoes are a radical first step towards realism within Western art; his Annunciation being the first Florentine altarpiece in the Renaissance style to use perspective in organising the space and acute psychological insight in his portrayal of characters.
Yet, because Fra Angelico painted his frescoes on the Life of Christ for the meditations of the brothers at the Convento di San Marco in Florence, his images also function as windows into the divine – in other words, as icons.
It is this aspect of Fra Angelico’s art that Robert Polidori has observed and highlighted in a series of painterly photographs taken in 2010 of the restored frescoed interiors in the 15th Century San Marco Convent. Polidori is an acclaimed photographer of human habitats, particularly interior spaces, in ways that mark the imprint of past lives. In these images, he reveals the iconic nature of these frescoes by viewing them through openings and against openings, noting that they are created within window-like shapes and alongside openings, whether windows or doors.
In these photographs we are always made aware of deeper space beyond the central focus or frame of the image. This something beyond which we glimpse through the openings that Polidori includes within his images is a synergistic parallel to the function of Fra Angelico’s frescoes, which, through meditation, are intended to connect the brothers with the Christ whose life is depicted so compellingly on the walls of these cells.
Awareness of recessional space is most apparent in Cells 38 and 39 which were built as a double cell, at the end of the corridor for lay brothers, for Cosimo de' Medici, who belonged to the community by virtue of his patronage. Cosimo was an Italian banker and politician, a member of the Medici family which ruled Florence during much of the Italian Renaissance. In 1437, Cosimo decided to rebuild Convento di San Marco entrusting the work to Michelozzo di Bartolomeo Michelozzi and the decoration of the walls, carried out between 1439 and 1444, to Giovanni of Fiesole, known as Fra Angelico, and his assistants including Benozzo Gozzoli. It is known that Cosimo loved to pray and meditate in these spaces, yet this wider knowledge of his piety and modesty may also have strengthened his power and legacy. In this cell, therefore, politics, religion and artistry combine in a creative tension which exemplifies the Renaissance.
This is the most spacious and elaborately decorated of all the cells. On the entrance wall of the lower room (Cell 38) Fra Angelico painted the crucified Christ against a ground of costly lapis lazuli, rather than the bare plaster background found in the other cells. Polidori views this image from outside through the frame of a circular window, then, from within, shows us the same image alongside the stairs and doorway by which Cosimo ascended to Cell 39. There his gaze was met by The Adoration of the Magi and the image of Christ as Man of Sorrows in a recessed tabernacle immediately below. Polidori gives us a ravishing view of these paintings created by Fra Angelico’s assistants while ensuring that we also glimpse the openings above and below the doubled images in this second cell.
Polidori’s highly detailed, large-format colour photographs are created with long exposures and using natural light. Through their detailed command of colour, texture, light and shade, these images invoke stillness and contemplation thereby mirroring the function of Fra Angelico’s frescoes and turning this gallery, with its wealthy patrons, into a cell for the duration of this exhibition.
For this transition to occur, however, we, as viewer, need to mirror the attitude and openness of the brothers as they prayed before Fra Angelico’s frescoes. This is the import of Polidori’s title for this show, which emphasises the necessity of response and receptivity on our part, as viewers, if we are to go beyond the beauty of these photographs and enter the history, tradition and reality of peaceful prayerfulness to which they connect.
Robert Polidori: Fra Angelico/Opus Operantis, Flowers Gallery, 21 Cork Street, London W1S 3LZ. 4 September – 12 October 2019
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Nicholas Wilton.
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