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diff --git a/41834-0.txt b/41834-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9312eac --- /dev/null +++ b/41834-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,951 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41834 *** + + MASTERPIECES + IN COLOUR + EDITED BY + T. LEMAN HARE + + FRA ANGELICO + 1387-1455 + + + + +"MASTERPIECES IN COLOUR" SERIES + + + ARTIST. AUTHOR. + + VELAZQUEZ. S. L. BENSUSAN. + REYNOLDS. S. L. BENSUSAN. + TURNER. C. LEWIS HIND. + ROMNEY. C. LEWIS HIND. + GREUZE. ALYS EYRE MACKLIN. + BOTTICELLI. HENRY B. BINNS. + ROSSETTI. LUCIEN PISSARRO. + BELLINI. GEORGE HAY. + FRA ANGELICO. JAMES MASON. + REMBRANDT. JOSEF ISRAELS. + LEIGHTON. A. LYS BALDRY. + RAPHAEL. PAUL G. KONODY. + HOLMAN HUNT. MARY E. COLERIDGE. + TITIAN. S. L. BENSUSAN. + MILLAIS. A. LYS BALDRY. + CARLO DOLCI. GEORGE HAY. + GAINSBOROUGH. MAX ROTHSCHILD. + TINTORETTO. S. L. BENSUSAN. + LUINI. JAMES MASON. + FRANZ HALS. EDGCUMBE STALEY. + VAN DYCK. PERCY M. TURNER. + LEONARDO DA VINCI. M. W. BROCKWELL. + RUBENS. S. L. BENSUSAN. + WHISTLER. T. MARTIN WOOD. + HOLBEIN. S. L. BENSUSAN. + BURNE-JONES. A. LYS BALDRY. + VIGÉE LE BRUN. C. HALDANE MACFALL. + CHARDIN. PAUL G. KONODY. + FRAGONARD. C. HALDANE MACFALL. + MEMLINC. W. H. J. & J. C. WEALE. + CONSTABLE. C. LEWIS HIND. + RAEBURN. JAMES L. CAW. + JOHN S. SARGENT. T. MARTIN WOOD. + LAWRENCE. S. L. BENSUSAN. + DÜRER. H. E. A. FURST. + MILLET. PERCY M. TURNER. + WATTEAU. C. LEWIS HIND. + HOGARTH. C. LEWIS HIND. + MURILLO. S. L. BENSUSAN. + WATTS. W. LOFTUS HARE. + INGRES. A. J. FINBERG. + COROT. SIDNEY ALLNUTT. + DELACROIX. PAUL G. KONODY. + +_Others in Preparation._ + + +[Illustration: PLATE I.--A GROUP OF ANGELS. (Frontispiece) + +This panel from the Uffizi Gallery in Florence is an example of Fra +Angelico's most popular work. It is painted in his earliest manner and +the figures are stiff and conventional, but the simplicity and beauty +that can be found in the group connect it with the paintings of the +primitives who were in a sense Angelico's forebears.] + + + + + Fra ANGELICO + + BY JAMES MASON + + ILLUSTRATED WITH EIGHT + REPRODUCTIONS IN COLOUR + + [Illustration: IN + SEMPITERNUM.] + + LONDON: T. C. & E. C. JACK + NEW YORK: FREDERICK A. STOKES CO. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + Page + I. Introduction 11 + + II. The Painter's Early Days 21 + + III. In San Marco 45 + + IV. Later Years 58 + + V. A Retrospect 71 + + VI. Conclusion 78 + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + + Plate + I. A Group Of Angels Frontispiece + In the Uffizi Gallery, Florence + + Page + II. A Figure of Christ 14 + In the San Marco Convent, Florence + + III. Two Angels with Trumpets 24 + In the Uffizi Gallery, Florence + + IV. Christ as a Pilgrim met by Two Dominicans 34 + In the San Marco Convent, Florence + + V. The Coronation of the Virgin 40 + In the San Marco Convent, Florence + + VI. Detail from the Coronation of the Virgin 50 + In the Uffizi Gallery, Florence + + VII. The Infant Christ 60 + In the San Marco Convent, Florence + + VIII. St. Peter the Martyr 70 + In the San Marco Convent, Florence + + + + +[Illustration] + + + + +I + +INTRODUCTION + + +Round the peaceful life and delicately imaginative work of Guido da +Vicchio, the Florentine artist who is known to the world at large as Fra +Angelico, critics and laymen continue to wage a fierce controversy. +While few are heard to deny the merit of the artist's exquisite +achievement, it is hard to find, even among those who are interested in +early Florentine religion and art, men who can agree about Fra +Angelico's positions between the monastery and the studio. "He was a man +with a beautiful mind," says one; "a light of the Church, a saint by +temperament, and he chanced to be a painter." "You are entirely wrong," +says the supporter of the opposing theory; "he was a Heaven-sent artist +who chanced to take the vows." + +So the schools of art and theology rage furiously together, after the +fashion of the two men who approached a statue from opposite sides and +quarrelled because one said that the shield carried by the bronze figure +was made of gold, and the other said it was made of silver. Incensed by +each other's obstinacy they drew swords and fought until they both +fell helpless to the ground, only to be assured by a third traveller, +who chanced to pass by, that the shield had gold on one side and silver +on the other. + +[Illustration: PLATE II.--A FIGURE OF CHRIST + +Detail from San Marco's Convent in Florence. This striking example of +the master's mature art reveals in most favourable light his exquisite +conception of Christ. Although this is no more than part of a picture, +it has been reproduced here in order that the details of the handling +may be appreciated.] + +Standing well apart from the enthusiasts of both sides, the average man +sees that Fra Angelico was an artist of remarkable attainments and at +the same time a devout, God-fearing friar, who seems to have deserved a +great part at least of the praise he received from the honeyed pen of +Giorgio Vasari. Naturally enough the modern artist finds in Fra +Angelico, or "Beato" Angelico as he is sometimes called, one of the most +interesting painters of the fifteenth century, and he does not bother +about the fact that his hero chanced to be a Dominican brother. Very +devout Catholics, on the other hand, will approach Fra Angelico's work +on the literary side, and will be profoundly conscious of the fact that +he was the first great artist of Italy who, realising the maternity of +the Madonna, represented her as a mother full of human affection, and +the Holy Child as a beautiful baby boy. It is the painter's abiding +claim to our regard that he brought life to his walls and panels, that +they present the living, palpitating sentiment of men and women and +children, that he painted for us the flowers that blossomed round him +and the countryside through which he wandered in his hours of ease. The +technical achievement, the gradual but steady improvement in dealing +with composition and masses of colour, the extraordinary change from the +stiff early figures to the supple ones of the later years, the splendid +growth of the artistic sense, from all these things the devotee turns +aside. He is not unconscious of the change, for the results achieved by +the painter account for the spectator's riper and fuller appreciation, +but he cannot analyse it. Of far more moment to him is the thought that +all Fra Angelico's life and art were given to the service of the Church, +that he laboured without ceasing to present the Gospel stories in the +most attractive form, despising the material rewards that awaited such +achievements as his. Ease, luxury and the praise of the world at large +the Dominican dismissed with fine indifference, believing that his +reward would come when his task was ended, and the work of his hands +should praise him in the gates. "Here," his orthodox latter-day admirers +say, "is the man of noble convictions and pure life, who stood for all +that was best in religion. As he chanced to have the gifts of a +painter, he used those gifts to develop his mission. Painting with him +was no more than a means to an end, and that end was the glorification +of God." The dispute must needs be endless; for we cannot see through +the four centuries that separate us from the artist, and every man takes +from a picture some echo of what he brought to it. + +In sober truth the matter is of far less importance than the makers of +controversy imagine. It should suffice both parties to agree that Fra +Angelico was a great painter and a great man, that his association with +the Church afforded him the opportunity of leaving behind him work that +has a spiritual as well as artistic quality. His altar-pieces and +frescoes seem to breathe the serene atmosphere of an age of faith; they +tell of a quiet retired life amid surroundings that remain unrivalled +to-day, even though our horizon is widened and we know the New World as +well as the Old. + +There are examples of the painter's art in the National Gallery and in +the Louvre, in Rome and in Perugia; but Florence holds by far the +greatest number. In Florence we find the series painted to decorate the +"Silver Press" of the Annunziata, and more than a dozen other works of +importance. The Uffizi guards the famous "Madonna dei Linajuoli" and the +"Coronation of the Virgin" from Santa Maria Nuova. The Convent of San +Marco, to which the Brotherhood of San Dominico went in 1346 from +Fiesole, holds the famous frescoes in cloister, chapter-house, and +cells, and offers an illuminating guide to the painter's ideals and +intentions, in work that is the ripe product of middle age. So it is to +Florence that one must go to study the painter, though there are one or +two works from his hands in Fiesole across the valley, while the +collection in Perugia is not to be overlooked, and Rome holds some of +the best work of the artist's hand, painted in the closing years. For +all the surging waves of tourists that break upon Florence, month in, +month out, filling streets and galleries with discordant noises, and +giving them an air of unrest strangely out of keeping with their +traditional aspect, the city preserves sufficient of its old-time +character to enable the student to study Fra Angelico's pictures in an +atmosphere that would not have been altogether repugnant to the artist +himself. Save in seasons when the city is full to overflowing the +Convent of San Marco receives few visitors, while in the Academy and at +the Uffizi there are so many expressions of a more flamboyant art that +there is seldom any lack of space round the panels Angelico painted. + +There are some days when San Marco is altogether free from visitors, and +then the frescoed cells, through which the great white glare of the day +steals softly and subdued, seem to be waiting for the devotees who will +return no more, and one looks anxiously to cloisters, and garden and +chapter-house for some signs of the life that rose so far above the +varied emptiness of our own. + + + + +II + +THE PAINTER'S EARLY DAYS + + +When Guido da Vicchio was born in the little fortified town from which +he takes his name, the town that looks out upon the Apennines on the +North and West, and towards Monte Giovo on the South, the Medici family +was just beginning to raise its head in Florence. Salvestro di Medici +had originated the "Tumult of the Ciompi"; the era of democratic +government in the city was drawing to a close. Beyond the boundaries of +Florence the various states into which Italy was divided were +quarrelling violently among themselves. The throne of St. Peter was rent +by schism, Pope and anti-Pope were striving one against the other in +fashion that was amazing and calculated to bring the Papal power into +permanent disrepute. It was a period of uncertainty and unrest, prolific +in saints and sinners, voluptuaries and ascetics. No student of history +will need to be reminded that it is to periods such as this that the +world has learned to look for its remarkable men. + +[Illustration: PLATE III.--TWO ANGELS WITH TRUMPETS + +These panels from the Uffizi Gallery in Florence are very popular +examples of the master's early work, and although they do not compare +favourably with his later efforts, they have achieved an extraordinary +measure of popularity in Italy, and are to be seen on picture postcards +in every Italian city from Genoa to Naples. (See p. 32.)] + +Doubtless some echo of the surrounding strife penetrated beyond the +walls of Vicchio when Guido was a little boy, for he lived in a +fortified town built for purposes of war. It is not unreasonable to +suppose that he may have seen enough of the stress and strife peculiar +to the age to have turned his thoughts to other things. If a lad, born +with a peaceable and affectionate disposition, be brought into contact +with violence at an early age, his peaceful tendencies will be +strengthened, he will avoid all sources and scenes of strife. We know +nothing of the painter's boyhood, but, looking round at the conditions +prevailing in Florence, it seems more than likely that the years were +not quite restful. + +In the absence of authentic information one may do no more than suggest +that, when the lad was newly in his teens, he served in the studio of +some local painter and discovered his own talent. Attempts have been +made to give the teacher a name and a history, but these efforts, for +all that they are interesting, lack authenticity. Far away in Florence +the first faint light of the Revival of Learning was shining upon the +more intelligent partisans of all the jarring factions. The claims of +the religious life were being put forward with extraordinary fervour and +ability by a great teacher and preacher, John the Dominican, who appears +to have reformed the somewhat lax rules of his order. We are told that +he travelled on foot from town to town after the fashion of his time, +calling upon sinners to repent, and summoning to join the brotherhood +all those who regarded life as a dangerous and uncertain road to a +greater and nobler future. Clerics looked askance at the signs of the +times, for although art and literature were coming into favour, +although Florence was becoming the centre of a great humanist movement, +the change was associated with a recrudescence of pagan luxury and vices +that boded ill for the maintenance of moral law. + +Perhaps John the Dominican preached in Vicchio, perhaps Guido and his +younger brother Benedetto heard him elsewhere, but wherever the message +was delivered it went home, for it is recorded that in the year 1407, +when Fra Angelico would have been just twenty years old, he and +Benedetto travelled to the Dominican Convent on the hillside at Fiesole +and applied for admission to the order. The brothers were welcomed and +sent to serve their novitiate at Cortona, where some of Fra Angelico's +earliest known work was painted. They returned to Fiesole in the +following year, but the Dominican establishment there was soon broken +up because the Florentines had acknowledged Alexander V. as Pope, and +the Dominican Brotherhood supported his opponent, Gregory XI. Foligno +and Cortona were visited in turn. In the former city the Church of the +Dominicans remains to-day; and so the brethren sought peace beyond +Fiesole, until in 1418 the Council of Constance healed the wounds of +Mother Church. Then Pope Martin V. came to live in Florence, where John +XXIII. paid him obeisance, and the Dominican friars returned to their +hillside home beyond the city, that was then, according to the historian +Bisticci, "in a most blissful state, abounding in excellent men in every +faculty, and full of admirable citizens." + +And now Fra Angelico, as he must be called in future, settled down to +his first important work. He had learned as much as his associates +could teach him, and had gathered sufficient strength of purpose, +intelligence and judgment, to enable him to deal with the problems of +his art as he thought best. It may be said that Fra Angelico built the +bridge by which mediæval art travelled into the country of the +Renaissance. Indeed, he did more than this, for having built the bridge, +he boldly passed over it in the last years of his life. We can see in +his work the unmistakable marks of the years of his labour. He started +out equipped with the heavy burden of all the conventions of +mediævalism. Against that drawback he could set independence of thought, +and a goodly measure of that Florentine restlessness that led men to +express themselves in every art-form known to the world. No Florentine +artist of the Quattrocento held that painting was enough if he could +add sculpture to it, or that sculpture would serve if architecture could +be added to that. Had there been any other form of art-expression to +their hands, the Florentines would have used it, because they were as +men who seek to speak in many languages. This restlessness, this +prodigality of effort, was to find its final expression in Leonardo da +Vinci, who entered the world as the Dominican friar was leaving it. + +In the early days Fra Angelico must have been a miniaturist. Vasari +speaks of him as being pre-eminent as painter, miniaturist, and +religious man, and the painting of miniatures cramped the painter's +style in fashion that detracts from the merits of the earlier pictures, +but of course Fra Angelico is by no means the only artist to whom +miniature painting has been a pitfall. + +Professor Langton Douglas has pointed out, in his admirable and +exhaustive work on Fra Angelico, that the artist was profoundly +influenced by the great painters and architects of his time, and has +even used this undisputed fact as an aid to ascertain the approximate +date of certain pictures. We can hardly wonder that the influence should +be felt by a sensitive artist, who responded readily to outside forces, +when we consider the quality of the work that sculpture and architecture +were giving to the world in those early days of the Quattrocento. Men of +genius dominated every path in life and Florence held far more than a +fair share of them. + +Among the works belonging to the years before Fra Angelico went to San +Marco, and painted the frescoes that stand for his middle period at its +best, are the Altar-piece at Cortona, "The Annunciation" and "The Last +Judgment," in the Academy of Florence, and the famous "Madonna da +Linajuoli," with its twelve angels playing divers musical instruments on +the frame round the central panel. These angels have made the Madonna of +the Flax-workers the best known of all the painter's works. So long the +delight of the public eye they are very harshly criticised to-day, and +not without reason, for doubtless they are flat and stiff productions +enough. But they have a certain naïve beauty of their own, and because +they have done more than work of far greater merit to spread the fame of +Fra Angelico, because they have been the source of great delight to +countless people despised and rejected of art critics, it has seemed +reasonable to present some of them in this little volume, side by side +with those more important works of the master to which so many +artists of the Renaissance are indebted. We may rest assured that to the +painter the angels were very real angels indeed, the best that his art +and devotion could express. + +[Illustration: PLATE IV.--CHRIST AS A PILGRIM MET BY TWO DOMINICANS + +This is a fresco in the cloister of San Marco at Florence. It will be +seen that Christ holds a pilgrim's staff which cuts the picture in half, +and the right hand of the foremost Dominican and the left hand of +Christ, extended across the staff, form a cross.] + +Other important works of this first period, which may be taken to range +from 1407 to 1435, are the altar-pieces known as the Madonna of Cortona, +the Madonna of Perugia, and the Madonna of the Annelena, the last-named +being in the Academy at Florence. Critics and artists can divide the +painter's life into four or more divisions expressed to them by changes +in his style; but a simpler division suffices here. + +Looking at Fra Angelico with eyes that the nineteenth century has +trained, we speak of this early work as of less importance than what +followed, but in so doing it is quite easy to speak or write as several +of his critics have done in very unreasonable fashion. Certainly the +artist, who in the last years of his life painted the picture of St. +Lorenzo distributing alms, and the scenes in the life of St. Stephen, +has travelled very far from the painter of the "Last Judgment" that may +be seen in Florence; but, even in the early days of Cortona, Fra +Angelico was a modern of the moderns. He was a man who worked and +thought far in advance of his times, who had the wide outlook that we +have learned to associate with all the Florentine artists of the +Quattrocento, and he left the boundaries of the painter's art far wider +than he found them. Doubtless many of his contemporaries found his work +daring and even immoral in so far as it departed from the traditions +that had satisfied his predecessors. He had an individuality that +expressed itself in fashion unmistakable before he was thirty years of +age, and developed steadily down to the last year of his life. Divorced +by his calling from the cares and joys of other men, he responded with +delight to the larger and more general aspects of life. Fra Angelico had +a keen and eager eye for natural beauty; he seems to have gone to the +countryside for all the inspiration that remained to seek when the +sacred writings were laid aside. The maternal aspect with which he +endowed the Madonna, who had hitherto been as stiff and formless as +though carved out of wood, testifies to the artist's recognition of +maternity as he saw it among the simple peasants his order served. He +restored humanity to Mother and Child. The child-like Christ, no longer +a doll but a real _bambino_, tells us how deeply the painter entered +into the spirit of a life that the rules of his order forbade him to +share. Just as some women who do not marry seem to keep for the world at +large the measure of loving sympathy that would have been concentrated +upon their children; so this painter monk, who had paid his vows to +poverty, chastity, and obedience, could express upon his canvas the +affection and the sentiment that would have been bestowed under other +circumstances upon a chosen helpmate. Lacking the joys of healthy +domesticity he turned to Nature with a loving eye and an intelligence +that cannot be over-estimated and, if he knew hours wherein, manlike, he +mourned for the life forbidden, the consolation was at hand. The Earth +Mother consoled him. In his earliest canvases he expresses his love of +flowers, the love of a child for the sights that make the earliest +appeal to our sense of beauty. His angels are set in flowering +fields, they carry blossoms that bloom in the fields beyond Cortona, and +upon the hillside of Fiesole. Clearly the painter saw Paradise around +him. Roses and pinks seem to be his favourite flowers, he paints them +with a loving care, knowing them in bud and in full leaf and, just as he +went to Nature for the decorative side of his art, so in a way he may be +said to have gone to Nature in her brightest and most joyous moods for +his colours. His palette seems to have borrowed its glory from the +rainbow--the gold, the green, the blue, and the red are surely as bright +and clear in his pictures as they are in the great and gleaming arch +that Easterns call in their own picturesque fashion "The Bride of the +Rain." + +[Illustration: PLATE V.--THE CORONATION OF THE VIRGIN + +This is a detail of a famous picture in San Marco. It is a fresco in a +cell of the South Corridor. Christ is seen crowning the Virgin, the +clouds surrounding them are rainbow tinted, and below the rainbow six +saints are ranged in a semi-circle.] + +In all his work Fra Angelico showed himself an innovator, a man who, in +thinking for himself, would not allow his own clear vision to be +obscured by the conventions that bound men of smaller mentality and less +significant achievement. At the same time he was very observant of the +progress of his peers, particularly in architecture, and students of +this branch of art cannot fail to notice his response to the +developments brought about by Michelozzo and Brunelleschi. Even in the +first period of his art he would have seemed a daring innovator to his +contemporaries for, all unconsciously he was taking his share in shaping +the great Renaissance movement that left so many timid souls outside the +radius of its illumination. + +In the early days he approached the human body with some diffidence, and +though a greater courage in this regard is the keynote of Renaissance +painting, the earlier timidity is hardly to be wondered at when we +consider the attitude of the religious houses towards humanity in its +physical aspect, and how necessary it was to avoid anything approaching +sensuous imagery throughout that anxious period of transition. As he +grew older and more confident of his powers, Fra Angelico seems to have +freed himself from some of the restrictions that beset an artist who is +also a religious. He, too, learned to glorify the human form. + +His love for Nature remained constant throughout all the years of his +life; he was sufficiently daring to introduce real landscape into his +pictures, and by so doing, to become one of the fathers of landscape +painting. His angels have a setting in the Italy he knew best, the +flowers that strew their paths are those he may have gathered in the +convent garden; for even his vivid and exalted imagination could not +create aught more beautiful than those that grew so freely and wild by +the wayside, or were tended by his brethren in San Marco. + +We find throughout the pictures a suggestion that the life of the artist +was a serene and tranquil one that, while he was actively concerned with +things of art throughout the district he knew best, he was sheltered by +the house of the brotherhood from the tumult and turmoil that beset +Fiesole, Cortona, and Foligno in the days of his youth. When he went to +San Marco in Florence, where his most enduring memorial remains to this +day, Fra Angelico was a man of experience and an independence so far in +advance of his time, that some of the work he had accomplished comes to +us to-day with a suggestion of absolute modernity in thought if not in +treatment. No beauty that our more sophisticated age can reveal to us +had passed him by, he paints Nature as Milton painted it when he wrote +the "Masque of Comus" and "l'Allegro." And this manner of painting, so +different from that of men who mix themselves with the world and +surrender to its fascinations, is the painting that endures. + + + + +III + +IN SAN MARCO + + +It was in 1435, and Fra Angelico was approaching his fiftieth year, when +the brotherhood of San Dominico quitted their convent in Fiesole and +went to find a new home in Florence. With the turn of the year they left +a temporary resting-place in San Giorgio Oltr' Arno and went into the +ruined monastery of San Marco. This house appears to have belonged to +the brotherhood of San Silvestro whose behaviour had been quite fitted +to the fifteenth century in Florence, but was not altogether creditable +to a religious house. Pope Eugenius IV., anxious to purify all the +religious houses, gave San Marco to the Dominicans with the consent of +Cosimo di Medici, and a very poor gift it was at the time, for the +dormitory had been destroyed by fire, and hastily-made wooden cabins +could not keep out the rain and cold wind. There was a great mortality +among the brethren. Once again the Pope Eugenius interceded with the +powerful ruler of Florence, and Cosimo sent for his well-beloved +architect Michelozzo and commissioned him to rebuild the monastery. +Naturally enough Fra Angelico, whose feeling for architecture was finely +developed, came under the influence of the architect, and when the +building was complete he was commissioned to adorn the walls with +frescoes that should keep before the brethren the actualities of the +religious life, and enable them to feel that the Spiritual Presence was +in their midst. + +Cosimo's munificence had not stopped with the presentation of the +building to the brotherhood. He equipped the monastery with a famous +library, provided all the service books that were necessary, and gave +the brethren for librarian a man who was destined to ascend the +Fisherman's Throne and keep the keys of Heaven. The books were +illuminated by Fra Angelico's brother Benedetto, who had taken the vows +with him, indeed some critics are of opinion that Fra Angelico himself +assisted in the work, but for this belief there appears to be but a +very small foundation. + +The Pope Eugenius, compelled by the quarrels of the great houses in Rome +to leave the Eternal City, came to Florence and saw Fra Angelico's work +there, and this visit paved the way for the painter's sojourn in Rome in +the last years of his life. Like so many of his contemporaries, Eugenius +could find time amid the distractions of a stormy and difficult +existence to keep a well-trained eye upon the artistic developments +going on around him, and he did but wait for peace and opportunity to +show himself as keen a patron of art as that "terrible pontiff," Julius +della Rovere, for whom Michelangelo was to work in the Sistine Chapel. + +[Illustration: PLATE VI.--DETAIL FROM THE CORONATION OF THE VIRGIN + +This is a detail from one of the pictures that have excited a great deal +of criticism. Professor Douglas calls the work "the last and greatest of +Fra Angelico's glorified miniatures." In the work as it stands in the +Uffizi to-day, Christ is seen placing a jewel in the Virgin's crown. +Right and left stretches the Angelic choir, below there is a great +gathering of saints.] + +To realise the life that the painter saw around him in the days when the +Dominican brotherhood first went to San Marco, it is necessary to +turn to some historian of Florence in an endeavour to recall the +splendour and stateliness of the city's life. The limits of space forbid +any attempt, however modest, to picture Florence in detail as it was in +those days, though the subject could scarcely be more tempting to the +pen. The pomp and circumstance of life were not passed over by the +painter, whose extraordinary receptivity found so much more in Florence +than in Fiesole for its exercise. Some echo, however, subdued to convent +walls, lingers in the city to-day where San Marco preserves its great +painter's reputation, and tells us that he was not indifferent to the +sights and sounds beyond its gates. + +A few of the frescoes have lost a little of their pristine beauty and +yet, for all the ravages of time, the most faded among them can suggest +much of the charm they possessed when they were painted. It is in the +open cloisters, of course, that the greatest damage has been done, and +the great "Crucifixion" in the chapter-house has not escaped lightly; +but in the cells where the work is more protected, time has dealt +lightly with the frescoes and the two or three little panels that help +to make the friar's lasting monument. Good judges have pointed out that +the great "Crucifixion" in the chapter-house, the largest work of the +painter, was never completed, and that the red background was intended +to serve as a bed for the blue that was never put on. Nobody can say why +this fine work was abandoned, and reproduction in colour is impossible. +Even a detail would be unsatisfactory, but one of the lunettes from the +cloister is given here. It represents Christ as a pilgrim meeting two +Dominican brothers, and gives an excellent suggestion of Fra Angelico at +his best, revealing the deep feeling of the religious man, and the skill +of the artist blended together in happiest and most inspired union. To +have seen the picture in his mind, the artist must have been a deeply +religious man; to have expressed the vision as he has expressed it in +terms of line and colour, the devotee must have been a great artist. + +From one of the cells in San Marco the chief part of another picture has +been reproduced in these pages. It represents the "Coronation of the +Virgin." Christ seated upon a white cloud is placing a crown upon the +Virgin's head; there is a rainbow border with six saints. In order that +the beauty of the central figures may be seen, no more than a part of +the picture is given here. It is the more important part, for the saints +are conventional figures, each with the hands uplifted in adoration, +each with a halo round his head. The beauty of the stories that Fra +Angelico sets before us was as true to him as the beauty of the flowers +he painted, and the landscape that met his eyes whenever he walked +abroad. The modern world, whether it doubt or believe, cannot but +recognise that the artist of San Marco has succeeded as much by his +faith as by his art. The other frescoes of the Dominican House must be +left for the fortunate minority who can visit them, but these two will +be found to represent well and truthfully both the religious idea and +the artistic achievement. To realise their merits to the full one must +not fail to bear in mind the development of painting at the time when +they were painted. For the men who came after Angelico the task was +easier; he had paved the way for them. In the days when San Marco was +decorated, the painter had very little to add to his technical +knowledge, and nothing at all to his feeling for the beauty of the +Gospel stories, and few artists of the fifteenth century have been so +fortunate as to collect their best work in one place where it could +remain undisturbed throughout the ages. + +Naturally enough it must pass--cloisters and chapter-house show signs of +the times all too clearly. "The Crucifixion" is faded not so badly as +Leonardo's "Last Supper" in the Santa Maria della Grazie of Milan, but +still seriously, nor can all the _lire_ of faithful but hurried tourists +restore its charm. It is in the cells that the work of Fra Angelico will +linger longest, and it is pleasant to speculate upon the debt that +devout monks must have owed to their artist brother, who could give them +such exquisite embodiments of the truth as he saw it to brighten their +hard lives and assure them, even in hours of doubt and mental trouble, +of the joys that would be associated with the latter end. + +San Marco, then, may be regarded as an exquisite and enduring memorial +of the middle period of Fra Angelico's life. The saint that was in him +dreamed dreams and saw visions, the artist that was in him expressed +them in fashion that calls for admiration even in these days when the +work done is nearly four hundred years old, and the thought that gave it +birth is no longer held in such universal esteem. The devotion that +inspired the themes, the simplicity of his handling, the beauty of his +colour, the love of Nature that was expressed as often as the picture +would permit, the reverential feeling in treatment that was bound to +communicate itself to the spectator, all these qualities make the work +remarkable, and help us to see how strong was the faith that inspired +and kept the artist happy in the cloisters when, had he wished to turn +his talent to other purposes, he might have had riches and honour. +Leading rulers of men were building palaces in every great city, +conquerors and statesmen were seeking to excel one another in tasteful +and costly display. Of those who could have commanded wealth, honour, +and comfort, the Dominican friar was among the first. But it sufficed +Fra Angelico to serve neither kings nor princes, but to choose for his +worship the King of kings "Who made the heavens and the earth and all +that is therein." + + + + +IV + +LATER YEARS + + +There is a great temptation to linger awhile in San Marco with the +friar, for even to-day the place has not lost its appeal, and there are +sufficient landmarks in the surrounding city to enable us to trace the +influence of men who were at once the contemporaries and inspirers of +his genius. Only the limits of space intervene to forbid too long a stay +in Florence, and as the painter's later years were spent in Rome we must +follow him there. For those who wish to linger in the monastery there +are books in plenty, some dealing with the Quattrocento, others dealing +with the Popes, others with Fra Angelico himself. This outline of a +painter's life seeks to do no more than introduce him to those who +may be interested; it is not intended for those who wish to follow +him beyond the limits of a modest appreciation. Vasari, Crowe, and +Cavalcaselle, Professor Langton Douglas, Bernhard Berenson and others +will supply the more complete and detailed accounts of the painter's +life and works, and the careful reader will find sufficient references +to other writers to direct him to every side issue. + +[Illustration: PLATE VII.--THE INFANT CHRIST + +From the Convent of San Marco. This picture gives a fair idea of the +exquisite sweetness and delicacy with which the painter handled the +subject of the child Christ. He does not treat this subject very often, +but when he does the result is in every way delightful.] + +Pope Eugenius IV., who visited Florence when he was exiled from Rome, +had settled for a while in Bologna until the anti-Pope Felix V. fell +from power, and had then hastened back to Rome, and settled down to +beautify the Vatican. Like all the great men of his generation he felt +the spirit of the Renaissance in the air, and desired no more than +leisure in order to respond to it. He remembered the clever artist, +whose work had charmed him in the days of his Florentine exile, and sent +an invitation to Fra Angelico to come to Rome and decorate one of the +chapels in the Vatican. In those days one travelled in Italy, even more +slowly than one does to-day by the Italian express trains--strange as +the statement may seem to moderns who know the country well--and by the +time that the friar had received the summons and had responded to it, +Eugenius IV. would appear to have relinquished the keys to his +successor. Happily the new Pope Nicholas V. was a scholar, a gentleman, +and a statesman, as responsive to the new ideas as his predecessor in +office. He gathered the best men of his time to the Vatican, which he +proposed to rebuild, and he entered upon a programme that could scarcely +have been carried out had he enjoyed a much longer lease of life than +Providence granted. Unfortunately he had no more than eight years to +rule at St. Peter's, and that did not serve for much more than a +beginning of his great scheme. He was succeeded by Tomaso Parentucelli, +that ardent scholar whom Cosimo di Medici had appointed custodian of the +collection of MSS. that he gave to San Marco in Florence when the +Dominicans took possession. As it happened Parentucelli himself was in +the last year of his life when he ascended the throne of St. Peter, and +his schemes, whether for the aid and development of scholarship or art, +saw no fruition. But for all that Nicholas V. ruled for no more than +eight years in Rome, he did much for Fra Angelico, who painted the +frescoes in the Pope's private studio, and decorated a chapel in St. +Peter's that was afterwards destroyed. This loss is of course a very +serious one, and suggests that those who ruled in the Vatican were +not always as careful as they might have been of works that would +have outlived them so long had they been fairly treated. It is +very unfortunate that art should suffer from the caprices of the +unintelligent. When Savonarola, also a Dominican monk, roused the +Florentines to a sense of their lapses from grace a few years after Fra +Angelico's death, they made a bonfire in the streets of Florence of art +work that was considered immoral. To sacrifice great work in the name of +morality is bad enough, to destroy it for the sake of building +operations is quite unpardonable. + +In Rome the summer heat is well-nigh unbearable. Even to-day the +voluntary prisoner of the Vatican retires to a villa in the far end of +his gardens towards the end of June, and none who can leave the city +cares to remain in it when May has gone, and the Tiber becomes a thread, +and fever haunts its banks. Fra Angelico felt the burden of the summer +and wished to suspend his work for a while. It so happened that he +received an invitation from Orvieto to decorate the Duomo there during +the months of June, July, and August. The first arrangement was that he +should go there every summer to escape the dog-days in Rome, but for +reasons not known to us the visit did not extend beyond one year, and +the frescoes that he had painted were seriously injured by rain, and +were not completed until Luca Signorelli took them in hand half a +century later. The little work that is attributed to the painter's brush +to-day in Orvieto need not detain us here. + +The frescoes in Rome represent the summit of Fra Angelico's achievement, +but they have not escaped the somewhat destructive hand of +nineteenth-century German criticism; one eminent authority having +declared that they are not by Fra Angelico at all, but have been painted +by pupils, Benozzo Gozzoli receiving special mention in this connection. +It is not necessary to take this criticism too seriously. The hands may +be the hands of Esau, but "the voice is Jacob's voice." The artist may +have received some assistance from pupils, the backgrounds may owe +something to another hand; there was no feeling, ethical or artistic, to +keep assistants from coming to the aid of their master, but the whole +composition and the whole feeling of the frescoes proclaim the friar. +The subjects are incidents in the life of St. Stephen and St. Lorenzo, +ending, of course, after the inevitable fashion of the time, with a +representation of the martyrdom. For once these martyrdoms have a +suggestion of reality. In the early days of Fra Angelico's work his +representations of martyrdoms and suffering were so naïve that they +could hardly do more than provoke a smile. His idea of hell was very +simple, and when he wished to be very bitter indeed--to express his +anger at its fullest--he peopled the nether world with brothers of the +great rival order of St. Francis. For the founder of that order, +Angelico had the greatest love and admiration; who indeed could refuse +to pay such tribute even to-day? But all the brethren did not live up to +the rule of their founder, and the Dominican painter's rebuke seems very +quaint in our eyes, though doubtless it made a great sensation when it +was administered. + +[Illustration: PLATE VIII.--ST. PETER THE MARTYR + +This is a fresco from the Cloisters of San Marco and represents St. +Peter, a saint whose appeal to the artist was very great The fact that +the saint has his finger to his lips may be taken as the artist's method +of emphasising the rule of silence of his Order. In fact the St. Peter +Martyr is generally called the "Silenzio," and like so many of +the artist's pictures must be taken to have a special spiritual +significance.] + +In Rome the painter's feeling for natural beauty reaches the height of +its expression, indeed one feels that every department of his work is at +its best and highest there. After his departure from the Eternal City, +the frescoes finished, and himself on the shady side of his sixtieth +year, the intervening centuries descend like a cloud, blotting out the +greater part of the record. The cloud lifts for a moment to show us +"Beato" Angelico, Prior of the Dominican Monastery at Fiesole, to which +more than forty years ago he had claimed admission as a novice, and then +he is back again in Rome in the chief convent of his order, Santa Maria +Sopra Minerva. There the light that had burned so brilliantly for nearly +half a century, illuminating the most alluring aspects of the Christian +faith, paled and went out. The body was laid to rest in the convent +Church, near the tomb of St. Catherine, and it is said that the epitaph +was composed by the Pope. Thereafter the order of St. Dominic produced +no great personality until it gave to the world a man of very different +stamp in Fra Girolamo Savonarola. + + + + +V + +A RETROSPECT + + +In art as in music and literature the path of the innovator is beset by +difficulties, and if, among all the movements that claim our attention +to-day, that of the Renaissance in fifteenth-century Italy is the most +fascinating, it is because the difficulties were conquered so +brilliantly. The century seemed to breed a race of men that enjoyed the +inestimable advantage of knowing what they wanted, and were determined +to succeed. It did not matter that the paths they trod were new. Each +man had mapped out a line of development for himself and went +strenuously along his chosen road, quite certain that he would find the +goal of his ambition at the journey's end. Curiously enough when the +paths were those of conquest there was always a road leading from them +to patronage of the arts. This may be because art in those days was +largely devoted to the service of the Church, and when a man had +acquired all that theft or conquest could give him, and realised that he +could not hope to wage successful war upon time, he began to think of +his latter days. Few men of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries could +approach death with confidence, and they sought to put something to +their credit against the Day of Judgment. To beautify religious houses, +to build houses for Holy Brotherhoods, these were the simplest and most +obvious ways of placating the Recording Angel, and to the uneasiness of +rich and unscrupulous men the Church owes not a few of her most +remarkable monuments. Moreover, even the tyrants wished to have some +enduring memorial. Cosimo di Medici, who gave San Lorenzo and San Marco +to Florence, remarked to his historian Bisticci, "Fifty years will not +pass before we are driven out of Florence, but these buildings will +remain." After all we can forget and forgive the superstition and +self-glorification that gave so much enduring wealth to the great cities +of Italy. + +Doubtless there were many failures among the Renaissance artists; it is +hardly an exaggeration to say that in painting alone there are scores of +men belonging to the Quattrocento who have left us nothing but their +names. Victory was to the fittest; they alone survived and left the +impress of their genius upon their own and succeeding generations. If we +look for a moment to Fra Angelico's contemporaries we see at once that +it was an age of great men. Filippo Brunelleschi was born ten years +before Angelico, and lived until the year 1446. He designed the dome of +the Cathedral of Florence, the Cloisters of San Lorenzo, the Sagrestia +Vecchia, the Church of St. Lawrence, and other works too numerous to +mention. Donatello, whose work to this hour is "all a wonder and a great +desire;" Ghiberti, to whom Florence owes the gates of the Baptistery; +Michelozzo, who built the Medici Palace and the Convent of San Marco, +and was associated with Luca della Robbia in making the bronze gates of +the Sacristy of the Duomo, belong to the same period, and were +intimately associated with Brunelleschi in much of the work that makes +Florence one of the show-places of the world to-day. Luca della Robbia +was born when Fra Angelico was no more than twelve years old. Masolino, +Masaccio, and Fra Filippo Lippi were among the painters of Fra +Angelico's own time, while, when he was approaching middle age, Gian +Bellini and Andrea Mantegna were growing up, and when Fra Angelico died, +Florence was full of great artists who were destined to carry on his +work. Of course, the literary activity was as great as the activity of +the artists; one recalls with a thrill of emotion that Petrarch and +Boccaccio were only just numbered among the dead--their work held all +its earliest freshness. If at first sight these matters seem to be +outside the scope of a brief consideration of Fra Angelico's life and +work, second thought will justify the inclusion even in these narrow +limits. + +Every artist is in a sense an echo of his environment and, although Fra +Angelico must have passed the greater part of his life within monastery +walls, yet the evidence of his pictures must convince all who look with +discerning eyes, that he was profoundly influenced by the life that went +on around him. The artistic and literary movements of the time affected +him deeply and, in his own modest way he was constantly striving to +enlarge the boundaries of his art, to develop its achievements in a +manner that must have made even his early pictures appear as dangerous +as the works of artists like Manet and Degas seemed to their +contemporaries. Had he lived in other times, had his lines been cast in +some quiet city to which no echo of the new movement in art and letters +could penetrate, Fra Angelico might still have painted interesting +pictures; but he would not have got beyond his earliest manner, indeed +he might not have attained to what is best in that. It would have been +so very easy for a narrow-minded superior to say that the innovations +were wrong, that the human figure in all its beauty must not be +expressed by a painter when presenting Virgin and Child, that the old +formal way was the right one. There could have been no appeal against +such a judgment. Doubtless many a budding genius has been nipped in this +fashion by short-sighted authority. How happy then was the friar with +time and place united in his service. + + + + +VI + +CONCLUSION + + +Fra Angelico has placed artists and laymen in his debt, and as far as +the latter are concerned the cause is obvious enough. A certain +conviction of the truth of every story he had to tell shines like a +bright light through all his pictures; they are a force for the +development and strengthening of belief. Even to-day one finds among the +crowd of tourists that "does" San Marco in half-an-hour or more, a few +visitors whose interest is of another kind, while there is no lack of +admirers for the work to be seen in the Uffizi, though much of it +belongs to the earliest part of the artist's life. So it happens that +the pictures have a well-defined literary and spiritual value, and it +is not surprising to think that the Church has granted posthumous +honours to the man whose work has brought so much honour in its train. +Artists acknowledge a great debt to the friar, but a debt of another +kind. As Professor Langton Douglas has pointed out in his admirable and +exhaustive work upon Fra Angelico, the friar, with his contemporaries, +Hubert and Jan Van Eyck, are the fathers of modern landscape. The new +movement was continued and developed by Verrocchio and Da Vinci on the +one side, and by Perugino and Raphael on the other. Then again Fra +Angelico made a definite movement towards portrait painting, by giving +the likeness of some of his friends and patrons to saints and martyrs. +This was yet another of the daring innovations that marked the opening +of the Quattrocento and, to realise how much it stood for we must +consider for a moment the comparative barrenness of modern art, which in +the hands of its most popular artists has little or nothing that is new +to say to us. Indeed it may be remarked with regret that great praise +often attaches to the man who goes back to the fifteenth and sixteenth +century, although a little reflection would enable every thoughtful +person to see that an art, forced to fall back upon traditions of the +past, is far from being in a flourishing condition. + + + The plates are printed by BEMROSE & SONS, LTD., Derby and London + The text at the BALLANTYNE PRESS, Edinburgh + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Fra Angelico, by James Mason + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41834 *** |