La Présentation au Temple

This is not a picture made to impress anyone. It is painted straight onto the wall of a small cell in the friary of San Marco in Florence, where a single Dominican monk would sleep and pray in front of it. In the 1440s Fra Angelico, himself a friar, covered more than 40 of these cells with scenes from the life of Christ, each stripped down to help concentrate the mind rather than dazzle the eye. Here the infant Christ is brought to the temple. Joseph stands behind Mary carrying a basket with two doves, the modest offering the law required. Two saints who lived long after the event stand in as witnesses, added so the praying monk could imagine himself present. The colours are pale and the space almost bare, exactly as intended.