Compelling radiance

Fra Angelico's Shine

Abstract

The depiction of radiance was a major challenge both to painters’ means and the limits of their materials in the early decades of the fifteenth century. Yet, because it falls outside the obvious analytical grasp of other types of figuration, radiance or shine often escapes critical attention. Focussing on Fra Angelico’s Paradise altarpiece from Sant’Egidio, Florence, this article explores the facture, optical effects, and varied meanings of radiance in the hands of a painter who was sensitive to the character of radiant light in biblical, Christian, and poetic sources. A distinctive strand of brilliant radiance, similarly using tooled gold leaf, is addressed in Fra Angelico’s small triptych of the Last Judgement for a Roman patron. Finally, the legacy and variants of gilded splendour are shown in a number of later fifteenth-century Florentine altarpieces of the Coronation of the Virgin. In exploring a historical material practice applied to visionary, heavenly, and apocalyptic themes, the analysis also acknowledges the appeal and affect of moving light, a phenomenon experienced differently, but still actively, in the present.