Inside, Outside – The World of the Artist (Fra Angelico)

Established in 1994, THE COURSE offers innovative and exciting lectures in Art History, Literature, Music and Opera.

In INSIDE, OUTSIDE, The World of the Art, Nicole Mezey will look at how creativity reflects the personal and professional experience of the artist. This series focuses on a different artist each week, looking first at the life behind their creations – the mental asylum in which Richard Dadd produced some of his greatest works, the pressure of eight children on the output of Frans Hals – before moving on to explore their work and the way it reflects that experience.

Fra Angelico (c. 1395 – 1455), A rare and perfect talent

Famously devout, John of Fiesole was known as the Angelic Friar, or Fra Angelico, long before his official beatification in 1982. Alongside the demanding routine of a Dominican friar, he painted manuscripts, altarpieces and frescoes and was said to pray before he painted and to weep whenever he painted a Crucifixion.