Visitation

Lorenzo Monaco's Visitation belongs to the Florentine International Gothic tradition that he helped define in the early 15th century, before Masaccio's frescoes in the Brancacci Chapel transformed the terms of Florentine painting. Monaco was a Camaldolese monk working primarily for Florentine religious institutions, and his work blends the refined line of Bohemian and Sienese Gothic with the warm gold-ground tradition of Byzantine Florence. The Visitation — Mary greeting her cousin Elizabeth — was a subject Monaco returned to repeatedly, its embrace of two women providing an opportunity for the rhythmic, sinuous figure arrangements that characterize his style. His version of the scene anticipates the gentler emotionalism of Fra Angelico while remaining rooted in the decorative splendor of the Gothic.

Monaco applies gold ground with precision, using it as an active compositional element rather than mere backdrop. His line is supremely confident — figures described in long, elastic contours — and his drapery falls in the deep, improbably beautiful folds of International Gothic, colored in his characteristic cool pinks and blues with gold highlights.