The Florentine Painters of the Renaissance | Page 7

at
its close, were Andrea Orcagna and Fra Angelico.
[Page heading: ORCAGNA]
Of Orcagna it is difficult to speak, as only a single fairly intact painting
of his remains, the altar-piece in S. Maria Novella. Here he reveals
himself as a man of considerable endowment: as in Giotto, we have
tactile values, material significance; the figures artistically exist. But
while this painting betrays no peculiar feeling for beauty of face and
expression, the frescoes in the same chapel, the one in particular
representing Paradise, have faces full of charm and grace. I am tempted
to believe that we have here a happy improvement made by the recent
restorer. But what these mural paintings must always have had is real
artistic existence, great dignity of slow but rhythmic movement, and
splendid grouping. They still convince us of their high purpose. On the
other hand, we are disappointed in Orcagna's sculptured tabernacle at
Or Sammichele, where the feeling for both material and spiritual
significance is much lower.
[Page heading: FRA ANGELICO]
We are happily far better situated toward Fra Angelico, enough of
whose works have come down to us to reveal not only his quality as an
artist, but his character as a man. Perfect certainty of purpose, utter
devotion to his task, a sacramental earnestness in performing it, are
what the quantity and quality of his work together proclaim. It is true
that Giotto's profound feeling for either the materially or the spiritually
significant was denied him--and there is no possible compensation for
the difference; but although his sense for the real was weaker, it yet
extended to fields which Giotto had not touched. Like all the supreme
artists, Giotto had no inclination to concern himself with his attitude
toward the significant, with his feelings about it; the grasping and

presentation of it sufficed him. In the weaker personality, the
significant, vaguely perceived, is converted into emotion, is merely felt,
and not realised. Over this realm of feeling Fra Angelico was the first
great master. "God's in his heaven--all's right with the world" he felt
with an intensity which prevented him from perceiving evil anywhere.
When he was obliged to portray it, his imagination failed him and he
became a mere child; his hells are bogy-land; his martyrdoms are
enacted by children solemnly playing at martyr and executioner; and he
nearly spoils one of the most impressive scenes ever painted--the great
"Crucifixion" at San Marco--with the childish violence of St. Jerome's
tears. But upon the picturing of blitheness, of ecstatic confidence in
God's loving care, he lavished all the resources of his art. Nor were
they small. To a power of rendering tactile values, to a sense for the
significant in composition, inferior, it is true, to Giotto's, but superior to
the qualifications of any intervening painter, Fra Angelico added the
charm of great facial beauty, the interest of vivid expression, the
attraction of delicate colour. What in the whole world of art more
rejuvenating than Angelico's "Coronation" (in the Uffizi)--the
happiness on all the faces, the flower-like grace of line and colour, the
childlike simplicity yet unqualifiable beauty of the composition? And
all this in tactile values which compel us to grant the reality of the
scene, although in a world where real people are standing, sitting, and
kneeling we know not, and care not, on what. It is true, the significance
of the event represented is scarcely touched upon, but then how well
Angelico communicates the feeling with which it inspired him! Yet
simple though he was as a person, simple and one-sided as was his
message, as a product he was singularly complex. He was the typical
painter of the transition from Mediæval to Renaissance. The sources of
his feeling are in the Middle Ages, but he enjoys his feelings in a way
which is almost modern; and almost modern also are his means of
expression. We are too apt to forget this transitional character of his,
and, ranking him with the moderns, we count against him every
awkwardness of action, and every lack of articulation in his figures. Yet
both in action and in articulation he made great progress upon his
precursors--so great that, but for Masaccio, who completely surpassed
him, we should value him as an innovator. Moreover, he was not only
the first Italian to paint a landscape that can be identified (a view of

Lake Trasimene from Cortona), but the first to communicate a sense of
the pleasantness of nature. How readily we feel the freshness and
spring-time gaiety of his gardens in the frescoes of the "Annunciation"
and the "Noli me tangere" at San Marco!
IV.
[Page heading: MASACCIO]
Giotto born again, starting where death had cut short his advance,
instantly making his own all that had been gained during his absence,
and profiting by