The Virgin and Child with Saints Dominic and Thomas Aquinas by Fra Beato Angelico.

No European country is as famous for its magnificent monumental frescoes - paintings on walls applied directly to wet plaster - as Italy in the period of the Renaissance. However, museums outside Italy contain few examples of frescoes. This exception is “Virgin and child with Sts Dominic and Thomas Aquinas” by Fra Beato Angelico. It is a fresco from the Monastery of Saint Dominique in Italian town Fiesole, where Fra Angelico, a Dominican monk, was prior. After the monastery was closed in the 19th century this fresco was removed and sold to the Florentine painters A. Mazzonti and C. Conti, who then sold it to the Hermitage. This symmetrical composition, with the Madonna enthroned and surrounded by saints, developed in the medieval period and became widespread in Italian 15th-century painting. It is the composition of “Sacra Conversazione” – a theme in Christian Art, a depiction of formal grouping of saints around Madonna and Child where Madonna’s image is usually prevalent. The images of the saints in the fresco are individualized. To the left of Mary is St Dominic, founder of the Dominican Order. For instance, everything in the image of St Dominic is deeply symbolic. He founded a monasterial order in 1215 to stand against heretics, so here you can see him with a lily in his right hand – a symbol of purity; there is a book in his left hand which is a symbol of truthful knowledge. The Spanish monk is wearing black and white – the colors are synonymous with Dominican Shepherd dogs (Анатолийская овчарка). “Domini canes” - dogs of God are to protect the Purity of the Teachings of Christ.  To the right is the great theologian St Thomas Aquinas Angelic Doctor has a book in his hand; above the book we can see the shining Gloria – symbol of Sun, and on the pages of the book he is holding we can read the text of the Psalms. Unlike the saints, who are given individual features and character, the image of the Virgin is greatly idealized. It is her inspired image which gives the painting its mood of sublime lyricism.