Fra Angelico | Page 4

the picture at Pisa[8]

where the Saviour is represented standing upright, in the act of blessing
with his right hand, while in the uplifted left he holds a golden cup.
He is represented full face, in all his majesty, his features of an
exquisite sweetness and nobility,--a grand figure, which has all the
seduction of a vision, such as our Dominican alone could conceive and
design.
As he could, in a manner no one had ever done before, give to the
figure of the living Christ the expression of infinite goodness, ready for
sacrifice; so in his Crucifixions, instead of following the example of his
contemporaries, who depicted Christ already dead, with marks of
sorrow on His features, and contorted by the spasm of a violent death;
he represented Him living, calm and serene, conscious of the sacrifice
He completed, and full of joy in dying for man's salvation.
The type of the Virgin, too, though its characteristic construction of
features, and short and receding chin, are derived from the Sienese
masters, especially from Lorenzetti, in Fra Angelico responds to an
artistic idealization chosen by him as approaching more the divinity of
her person. The flowing robes of the Virgin show her long and refined
hands, but beneath that mantle he draws no feminine figure nor can one
even guess at it. All the power of the artist is concentrated in her face
umile in tanta gloria, (humble in such great glory)
on which the artist has impressed such candour, and so lively an
expression of ineffable grace, that one is involuntarily moved to
devotion.
The divine child with its golden curls, full and sunny face, wide open
and sparkling eyes, is in the pictures at Cortona and Perugia depicted
with rosy fingers in the act of blessing; in the "Madonna della Stella"
He embraces His mother so closely that He almost hides Himself in her
bosom; in the great azure-surrounded tabernacle of the Linen Guild, He
is smiling; while in the fresco of the corridor at San Marco, He has an
ingenuous wondering gaze as He holds forth His little hand,--an
expression so natural that it shows a happy grafting of ideal

representation, on a conscientious and close study of the real.
Full of character, too, are the heads of his old people, with flowing
beards and severe aspect, and those of his saints and martyrs, which
were evidently either young novices of the convent, contemporary
brethren, or elder companions in the faith, portrayed with sapient and
ingenuous realism. But the figures which most brilliantly display his
genius, are those diaphanous angels, robed in flowing tunics,
resplendent with gold, and of infinite variety. While admiring that
multitude of celestial creatures, who praise, sing and dance around the
radiant Madonnas, how can we doubt that they have visited his cell,
and that he has lived with them in a fraternal and sweet familiarity?[9]
Even when he has to represent scenes of passion, Fra Angelico
mitigates the violence of action with softness of sentiment, for anger
and disdain never entered his soul; and in their place he prefers to
reproduce one character alone in all his figures with their gentle
expression. It is his own character, with its angelic goodness of heart,
which he incarnates in the divine beauty of all these celestial beings. As
in name and art, so in real life he was truly "angelic," for he spent his
whole time in the service of God, and the good of his neighbour and the
world.
"And what more can or ought to be desired, than by thus living
righteously," says Vasari, "to secure the kingdom of heaven, and by
labouring virtuously, to obtain everlasting fame in this world? And, of
a truth, so extraordinary and sublime a gift as that possessed by Fra
Giovanni, should scarcely be conferred on any but a man of most holy
life, since it is certain that all who take upon them to meddle with
sacred and ecclesiastical subjects, should be men of holy and spiritual
minds....
"Fra Giovanni was a man of the utmost simplicity of intention, and was
most holy in every act of his life.... He disregarded all earthly
advantages; and, living in pure holiness, was as much the friend of the
poor in life as I believe his soul now is in heaven. He laboured
continually at his paintings, but would do nothing that was unconnected
with things holy. He might have been rich, but for riches he took no

care; on the contrary, he was accustomed to say, that the only true
riches was contentment with little. He might have commanded many,
but would not do so, declaring that there was less fatigue and less
danger of error in obeying others, than in commanding others. It was at
his option to hold