The Art and Glow of Shared Limelight

DAY 6

There were a few runners out on the street as we made our way toward the train station at the necessary pre-dawn hour. The lights of a lone cafe invited early risers in for a pastry and cappuccino, but we couldn’t stop. We aren’t that secure yet navigating train schedules and departure platforms, and resolved to be at the station early. One week in, this would be our first day excursion beyond the environs of Spello. We were Orvieto bound.

Of course the trains were on time. That’s simply the way they function here. We successfully navigated our transfer at Orte and arrived in Orvieto a little before 9 am.

We weren’t alone. The funiculare at the bottom of the hill was already full when we wedged our way onboard for the short ascent up the hill to the city center. Spilling out with the crowd in the Piazza del Duomo we joined an even bigger crowd of tourists, each managing to stop multiple times in front of us to extend her or his selfie stick to take another gratuitous shot. We joined the sweeping throng, paused to avail ourselves of that earlier sacrificed cappuccino and pastry, and made a preliminary circuit around town until the churches and museums opened mid-morning.

The day progressed as the guide book recommended, with historic sights, international sounds, artistic expression, and local flavors. And it was delightful for all that.

But two faces stay with me. In a side chapel of the Duomo, called The Chapel of San Brizio, the ceiling and walls are covered with frescoes by Fra Angelico and Luca Signorelli whom Michelangelo would later claim as an inspiration and example. The art depicts, among other things, the influence of the Antichrist, the condemnation of the lost, the resurrection of the dead, the torment of the damned and the entrance of the saved into heaven. Cumulatively engaged, it is a near-overwhelming masterpiece. Though Fra Angelico began the work, he was only able to complete the celestial scene immediately behind and above the altar. Decades later, employing a manifestly more evolved style, Signorelli resumed and ultimately completed the project.

In the bottom corner of one of the panels, two figures are painted, standing unobtrusively together, seemingly observing the depicted events. One is a self-portrait of Signorelli; the other is Fra Angelico. Though inserted self-portraits are common enough, I’m taken by this particular fraternal inclusion. Signorelli didn’t have to include his predecessor. He, after all, had completed the vast majority of the work. In fact, a smaller man might have painted over the small inheritance and started over to claim the entirety for himself. That he didn’t is a magnanimity of spirit. That he included Fra Angelico in the embodied signature is true generosity of heart. There they are, the two of them: side by side, partners, co-workers in a project larger than either one.

I’m moved by that — even more than the grandeur of the art and the theological substance of the depiction.

Indeed, that very magnanimity and generosity might very well be what that theology depicted is ultimately about.

Grace.

Appreciation.

Gratitude.

Recognition.

There is, indeed, an art to that.