In the middle of the 15th Century the Early Renaissance Italian painter Fra Angelico depicts the Archangel Gabriel in pink ...

3. In the middle of the 15th Century the Early Renaissance Italian painter Fra Angelico depicts the Archangel Gabriel in pink.
That pink had been traditionally reserved primarily for the rendering of flesh.
By draping Gabriel in the lushest of pinks, Fra Angelico fleshes the Archangel out as a being of body and blood, breaking down
the distinction between the divine and the temporal.
Pink humanizes heaven.
No painting embodies pink’s gradual pendulum movement from the spiritual to the secular more vividly than the French artist
Fragonard’s exuberant The Swing, painted around 1767.
Here, We’re a long way from the pink whisper of angels now.

4. Pink
in Western painting

5. Angel in pink …

6. Gabriel approaches Mary in the outdoor cloister,
clad in pink with multicolored wings.
Mary is seated facing him in her typical blue indicating her royal status and her purity.
Her arms are folded in the same manner as Gabriel but this gesture shows
her acceptance, humility, and submission.
This Annunciation is not Fra Angelico's first painting on that theme nor his only one
in the convent. His works are scattered across the world in well-known museums
and galleries including the Prado.
He is credited as the inventor of this type of composition, where Gabriel visits Mary
in an outdoor setting.
The way it handles space and lighting is revolutionary because it is a transition
out of the Gothic period and into the Renaissance.
Fra Angelico
The Annunciation of Cortona
L'Annonciation de Cortone
1437-1446
Basilica di San Marco, Convent San Marco, Florence

8. The Angel's pink tunic is the color of human flesh, whose appearance he has taken,
but through the open fold of his robe his true nature appears:
a long sky blue robe denoting who he is and where he comes from.
Mary dresses upside down...her pink robe is telling us that she is earthly
but her blue cloak reveals that she has been clothed in the divinity of the Word
As St. Thomas says, the Incarnation makes the invisible God visible
and this required the angel to make himself visible.
Fra Angelico
The Annunciation
L'Annonciation
1425-1428
Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

12. Mary in pink …

13. an sky darkens with storm clouds,
an street of a Tuscan town
Mary embraces her cousin Elizabeth,
a extreme delicacy and exchanging looks of intense mutual affection is set
against the rigidly frontal positions of the two maidservants
intricately draped robes,
Elizabeth's orange cloak,
Mary's blue mantle and pink robe's sleeve
and pink cloak of her maid
and ...
Jacopo da Pontormo
Carmignano Visitation
La Visitation de Carmignano
1528-1530
Propositura dei Santi Michele e Francesco, Carmignano

16. two tradesmen, engaged in their conversation,
a Florentine housekeeper hangs a cloth as she did nearly five hundred years ago
and
the most delightful and unexpected figure to reemerge is the one peeking
out from behind the corner of the same building: a curious little gray donkey
- a living form returned to a metaphysical background –
that master Jacopo included to add a smile to the sacred.
Jacopo da Pontormo
Carmignano Visitation
La Visitation de Carmignano
1528-1530
Propositura dei Santi Michele e Francesco, Carmignano

19. and
Saint Sebastian in pink …

20. A young man emerges from the dark background, torso nude,
swathed in pink drapery …
It is a fascinating and sexy San Sebastian that Bronzino presents to us.
Bronzino
Portrait of a Young Man as Saint Sebastian
Portrait d'un jeune en Saint-Sébastien
1533
Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

22. Over time,
pink would blossom beyond of its complex theologies to inflect a wider array of secular personality …

23. A pink curtain,
a statue of Bacchus, god of wine, who, in Renaissance art, is the leader of a mad,
drunken crew
and
a young man
...
The pink drapery behind him is erotic, setting off the blush on his cheek and lips.
(... a sly, ambiguous painting, depicting youth as intense and foolish, innocent
and lascivious.)
Bronzino
Portrait of a Young Man
Portrait d'homme
1550-1555
National Gallery, London

25. This male head was detached from the main part
of the painting Christ and the Adulteress by Tiziano Vecellio, known as Titian.
Reduced to a portrait, “Head of a Man” nevertheless retains great charm,
not least due to the fact that it appears to be an image of the artist himself.
Titian, Titien
Head of a Man (fragment of 'Christ and the Adulteress')
Tête d'homme (fragment)
1509
Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow

27. A blue curtain,
a handkerchief of fine linen to signal gentility and status
in pink and black? Sir has good taste ...
Lorenzo Lotto
Portrait of a Bearded Man
Portrait d'un homme barbu
1540
New Orleans Museum of Art

29. Thin white shirt collar
a black jerkin,
and
a pink doublet with wide, softly pleated sleeves of shimmering, luminous matter
and color, reminiscent of the clothes of the four women of the Visitation of Carmignano
Jacopo da Pontormo
The Lute Player
Portrait d'un joueur de luth
1529–1530
Alana collection, Newark

31. Dressed in the Spanish fashion of the time and with his hand on his sword,
one of Moroni’s most arresting portraits ...
an sculptural fragment conveys the passage of time or succession of ages,
an biblical scene of the prophet Elijah ascending to heaven on his fiery chariot,
an inscription in Spanish MAS EL ÇAGVERO QVE EL PRIMERO
(More he who follows than the first)
and
the opulent attire of woven pink silk with silver plant and flower motifs
Giovanni Battista Moroni
Portrait of Gian Gerolamo Grumelli, The Gentleman in Pink
Portrait de Gian Gerolamo Grumelli, Le Gentilhomme en rose
1560
Palazzo Moroni, Bergamo

33. Pink, this virile colour ...
colour of virility, power, authority and war
(... I can’t help but share. What a man, huh?
Men have class in pink, which makes me think they should
dare pink more often in everyday life.)
Dosso Dossi, Follower of, Suiveur de
Portrait d'homme en buste à la toque
Bust-Length Portrait of a Man with a Cap
16th century
Private collection

36. Dante Alighieri in pink
in the company of illustrious figures Cino da Pistoia, Guittone d'Arezzo,
Giovanni Boccaccio, Guido Cavalcanti and Petrarch
Giorgio Vasari
Six Tuscan Poets
Six poètes toscans
1544
Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis

39. Head crowned with laurels, trampling underfoot the armour of his enemies
and
a candy pink armor
(One could say a contrast ... troubling?)
Jacob Bunel
Portrait d'Henri IV en Mars 1606
Portrait of Henry IV of France, Portrait of Henri IV in March
1605-1606
Musée National du Chateau de Pau, Pau

42. The action is focused on the bowl of cherries on the table.
the father offers cherries to his son,
the mother offers cherries to her daughter
the animated little boy, striking in his translucent blue drapery,
the woman is in the position of honor on the man’s right, which is unusual,
her pink dress has crumpled sleeves
Giovanni is much older than the Mrs.
The Mrs. has done her duty and borne two children (judging by her expression).
Giovanni is doing quite well in the Venetian merchant business.
The Voltas could afford bowls of cherries.
The Voltas do not appear to share lots o' laughs or tender moments as a couple.
(Just a wild guess.)
Lorenzo Lotto
Portrait of Giovanni della Volta with his Wife and Children
Portrait de Giovanni della Volta avec sa femme et ses enfants
1547
National Gallery, London

45. Painted soon after Eleanor married Cosimo I de’ Medici in 1539.
Dress to Impress ...
a luxurious pink dress of Spanish style,
a duty to express her rank through her clothing
Agnolo Bronzino
Eleanor of Toledo
Éléonore de Tolède
1543
Národní galerie, Praha

47. Lady of a refined and cultured Florentine society,
an idealized symbol of chaste beauty
is dressed sumptuously in warm pink satin and dark velvet
Agnolo Bronzino
Portrait of Lucrezia Panciatichi
Portrait de Lucrezia Panciatichi
1545
Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

49. Collared doublet in pink satin embroidered with triplets of pearls,
Mary, Queen of Scots had been betrothed to the Dauphin since the age of 5,
and from that moment onwards was raised at the French court.
This portrait would most likely have been commissioned by the French royal family
from their court artist to commemorate the royal marriage.
François Clouet
Marie, reine d'Ecosse
Portraits of Mary, Queen of Scots
1558-1560
Royal Collection Trust, UK, London

51. Favorite model Victorine Meurent,
wearing a pink gown, holding a small bouquet of violets
and accompanied by an African Grey Parrot.
Recent scholars have interpreted it as an allegory of the five senses:
the nosegay (smell), the orange (taste), the parrot-confidant (hearing),
and the man’s monocle she fingers (sight and touch).
Édouard Manet
Young Lady in 1866, or Lady with a Parakeet
Une jeune dame en 1866, aussi La Femme au perroquet
1866
Metropolitan Museum of Art, Manhattan, New York City

53. Who’s that cover girl starring on the Kenwood House exhibition catalogue?
None other than the indisputably beautiful Mary, Countess Howe.
Elegantly dressed in a pink silk taffeta "robe à l'Anglaise",
the countess is actually standing in the artist’s studio,
passing time while her husband goes for spa treatments
to try to cure a case of the gout.
Thomas Gainsborough
Portrait Mary, Countess of Howe
Marie, Comtesse de Howe
1764
Iveagh Bequest, Kenwood House, London

55. A splendid white gown, accented with large pink frills.
a pink ribbon at her throat
and
a pearl bracelet with a cameo of the king at its center
– and, God forbid it not also match her ribbons and rouge, it is, of course, a bright pink
François Boucher
Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson, marquise de Pompadour,
dite Madame de Pompadour à sa toilette
Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson, Marquise de Pompadour,
known as Madame de Pompadour at Her Toilette
1758
Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge

58. Pink could be outrageous …
while the unconscious husband pulls the ropes of the swing,
the stealthy lover hides in the flowering bush to observe the young woman
from a privileged point of view
... in a bubbling of skirts, the slipper slipping off your foot adds a mischievous note.
… a cooler, lighter and more vivid pink !
Jean-Honoré Fragonard
Les Hasards heureux de l'escarpolette
The Swing
1767-1768
Wallace Collection, London

61. o.esqsegues@gmail.com
Pink in Western painting
Le rose dans la peinture occidentale
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