About Me

Fra Angelico

(also known as Fra Giovanni)

I was  born around 1395, I would tell you the exact date but I do not rightly remember. I was friar at the San Dominico Monastery, in Fiesole, This would be the place that I discovered my incredible art skills. I did not learn everything on my own, for I was in an apprenticeship with Lorenzo Monaco, a Camaldolese Monk. I was trained as an illuminator, which meant I added decorations to manuscripts.  Since I was a monk I only did work on illuminating bible manuscripts. In 1436 I moved to the San Marco Monastery in Florence where I met a very important man, Cosimo de Medici. Medici admired my painting so he requested that I decorate  every cell in the San Macro Monastery. In these frescoes I painted I used many Subdued colors such as, light pinks and tans. My figures in these paintings are very earthy and human like. At the height of my career I was commissioned to decorate the Vatican Cathedral, where i was able to gild and color with the most expensive materials such as gold. I sadly died in 1455. I am proud to say that in my lifetime i could change art. I pioneered  many stylistic trends that distinguished the early renaissance, which included, the rational treatment of pictoral space  and the volumetric modeling  of forms with light and shadow. 

One of my frescoes from San Marco

My artwork from the Vatican