Fra Angelico | Page 3

fact the similitude between the two painters noticeable in
their composition, softness of outline, lightness of figures, and clear
harmonious colouring, tends to confirm the great artistic affinity which
we have indicated. Both of them used rosy tints in the flesh, with
greenish and yellowish shadows, both recall the older artists of the

"trecento" in the perspective, which is often incorrect, and out of
proportion. But how far superior is Fra Angelico when the work of both
in its full aspect is compared!
Fra Angelico has, it is true, conventional forms, and there is a certain
sameness in his heads with their large oval countenances; the small
eyes, outlined round the upper arch of the eyebrow, and with a black
spot for pupils, sometimes lack expression, or have a too monotonous
one, and the iris is often lost in the white of the cornea; his mouths are
always drawn small with a thickening of the lips in the centre, and the
corners strongly accentuated; the colour of his faces is either too pink
or too yellow; the folds of the robes (often independent of the figure,
especially in the lower part) fall straight, and in the representations of
the seated Virgin expand on the ground, as if to form the foot of a
chalice. But in his frescoes these faults of conventional manner almost
entirely disappear, giving place to freer drawing, more life-like
expression, and a character of greater power.
We will not repeat with Vasari that Fra Giovanni perfected his art from
the frescoes of the Brancacci Chapel; but we do not doubt that he too
felt the beneficent influx of the new style, of which Masaccio was the
greatest champion, and that he followed it, leaving behind, up to a
certain point, the primitive giottesque forms. There is in his art, the
great mediæval ideal rejuvenated and reinvigorated by the spirit of
newer times. Being in the beginning of his career, as is generally
believed, only an illuminator, he continued, with subtle delicacy and
accurate, almost timid design, to illuminate in larger proportions on his
panels, those figures which are often only parts of a decorative whole.
But in his later works while still preserving the simplicity of handling,
and the innate character of his style, he displays a new tendency, and
learns to give life to his figures, not only by the expression of purity
and sweet ecstasy, but in finer particularization of form and action
which he reproduces in more material style.
His clear diaphanous transparency of colouring is not used from lack of
technical ability, but to approach more nearly to his ideal of celestial
and divine visions, and succeed in a species of pictorial religious

symbolism.
In the midst of his calm and serene compositions Fra Angelico has
figures in which a healthy realism is strongly accentuated; figures
drawn with decision, strong chiaro-scuro and robust colouring, which
show that he did not deliberately disdain the progress made in art by his
contemporaries. Indeed we should err in believing that Fra Angelico
was unwilling to recognize the artistic developments going on around
him, and the new tendencies followed by his eminent neighbours
Ghiberti, Brunelleschi and Donatello. It was not so; but he only
profited by the movement as far as he deemed possible without losing
his own sentiment and character; thus giving a rare example of
self-knowledge.
Perhaps he divined that if he had followed the new current too closely,
it would have carried him farther than he wished to go; that the new
manner would have removed him for ever from his ideal; in a word,
that too intense study of the real, would have diminished or entirely
impeded fantasy and feeling. He instinctively saw these perils, and
therefore kept himself constant to his old style, and while perfecting
himself in it, he still remained what he always had been, and what he
felt he should be.
Though constrained to repeat to excess the usual subjects, too
traditionally drawn, "he often," as Burckhardt writes, "understood how
to avoid in the features of his saintly personages that aspect of abstract
impersonality, which had hitherto marked them, and to animate them
with delicate and individual life. He succeeded in giving a new
character to the time-honoured types used in preceding artistic
representations. To prove this it is sufficient to cite the St. John
Baptist--one of Fra Angelico's finest creations."
He modifies the traditional type of Christ according to his own faith
and feeling. Deriving it from Giotto, with improvements gathered from
Orcagna, he excels both masters, impressing on it a divine character,
and giving to the face of the Man God a sweet gentleness which is truly
sublime. These qualities reach the highest grade in the "Coronation of
the Virgin" at the Convent of San Marco, and in