Compagnia di San Francesco altarpiece

Around 1430, when Fra Angelico put together this triptych in tempera and gold, Florence was pulling in two directions at once. A few streets away the young painter Masaccio had just finished frescoes that gave figures real weight and a room you could walk into. Fra Angelico, a Dominican friar, kept the old gold ground that glows behind his saints, the medium of devotion rather than illusion. He was painting for a lay brotherhood named after Saint Francis, men who met to pray and give charity. What he took from the new art was quieter, softer faces and gentler light falling across the drapery. He would spend much of his later life in the convent of San Marco, where this panel now hangs, covering its cells with frescoes for his fellow friars.