"The 19th century did not do right by Fra Angelico (around 1395-1455). Napoleon's suppression of Italian monasteries saw the dispersal of works by the Dominican friar, now regarded as one of the pioneering figures of the early Renaissance. Then the Victorians, including none other than Queen Victoria, developed a sentimental and highly influential fascination with aspects of his piety, revering him as a kind of neo-Medieval outlier."
"Along with his near contemporary Masaccio, Fra Angelico is now regarded as among the first Tuscans to apply the use of linear perspective to fresco and panel painting, and arguably the first to conjure up a dynamic depiction of light. This modernised Fra Angelico is seen as an agent of change rather than a bulwark against it, and 21st-century museum-goers have had some stellar opportunities to take note, first at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 2005,"
19th-century upheavals dispersed many of his works and Victorians sentimentalized his piety, framing him as a neo-Medieval outlier. Late 20th-century scholarship and technical research allowed historians to reconsider and reinvent his artistic profile. Along with Masaccio, he became recognized as among the first Tuscans to apply linear perspective to fresco and panel painting and as perhaps the first to evoke a dynamic treatment of light. Modern interpretation casts him as an agent of change in early Renaissance art rather than a bulwark against modernity. Major exhibitions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (2005), the Museo del Prado (2019), and a comprehensive Florence double-venue show of over 140 works consolidate decades of evolving scholarship.
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