Part 2

Since Angelico's time, no matter what artist has essayed the task of angel painting, none has approached so nearly as the angelical painter of San Marco to our ideal of these heavenly beings. We all of us have some more or less definite notions of how angels should look. We may be painfully literal on other subjects but, though there is no science on which to base our demand, we want them with white or jeweled wings. Sometimes, in our most rapt moods, the air about us seems filled with these ethereal beings, tending on the sick and dying, leading little children, ministering to prisoners as to Peter of old, bringing comfort to us in our sorrows. This, of course, is a fancy and yet it is such fancies that have made Fra Angelico's representations of angels a real joy to man through all the centuries since he painted them with more than mortal power.

His angels that we enjoy most are not those entrusted with some special mission, but they are of that great multitude whose joy it is to bring good tidings of great joy to men. Here is one glowing in ruby red, the color of passion. She lifts on high her golden trumpet and we know that God is a ready helper, waiting only to be summoned to our rescue. Another, arrayed all in green, the color of spring, brings us hope, without which man would be crushed by the iron weight of his sorrows. This one in blue bears her message of heavenly love and fidelity. That one in yellow, the color of the sun itself, brings light to those who sit in darkness. Truly they are a ministering band with their halo-encircled heads, their heavenward-lifted eyes, their star-bespangled robes.

What matter if critics tell us that Angelico's knowledge of anatomy was defective and that it is fortunate for his angels that their creator represented them all closely draped? Their talk for centuries has not made the devout painter's fame one whit less, while all the time his angels have been bringing comfort to generations of men and women.

Another picture in San Marco we scan carefully. It is "_The Coronation of the Virgin_." This was a favorite subject with the painter, perhaps because it represents the final reward of the world's great mother--the crown placed upon her head by her enthroned Son. We remember how exquisitely Correggio depicted the same event, with what supreme grace his lovely virgin bends her matchless head to receive the diadem. Hardly less beautiful are Fra Angelico's pictures of this subject, even though they were painted half a century before Correggio's birth. The best of Angelico's pictures of "_The Coronation of the Virgin_" is now in the Louvre, where the beautiful Virgin is surrounded by tier upon tier of rejoicing angels.

For nearly forty years Fra Angelica had served his convent faithfully, with devout life and the work of his hand. Everything paid for his pictures went to swell the income of the convent. He never took an order without first consulting his prior.

His fame had long ago reached Rome. The art-loving Popes of that time could not remain oblivious to his great ability. In 1445, the quiet life of the monastery was interrupted by Pope Eugenius, who called Angelico to Rome to assist in decorating the Vatican. We can easily imagine that there was some shrinking on Angelico's part at severing the ties that had held him so long among the brothers of his order. This may have been somewhat offset by a vague desire to see Rome, the pilgrim city of the Christian world.

However that may be, he obeyed the call of the Pope and journeyed by easy stages, passing from convent to convent, until the Holy City was reached. It would have been an interesting journey to have taken with the pious monk. One could have seen how the various monasteries exercised one of the most beneficial purposes of their organization, that of ministering to tired and hungry travellers. At many convents at whose doors he appeared, a stranger, he probably left pictures and certainly the memory of a charming personality. Perhaps he relieved for an hour some weary illuminator of the parchment and left a page of his work to encourage the tired monk.

The Pope who called Angelico to Rome did not live long after the painter's arrival there, but he did not die before he had shown special favor to the monk of San Marco.

Taking for granted that, because Angelico could paint such beautiful pictures he could do everything else equally well, he asked him to become the Archbishop of Florence, one of the most important church offices within the gift of the Pope. How we admire the good brother when he responded, with the simplicity which was so marked a characteristic of him, "I can paint pictures but I cannot rule men." And further, how we delight in him as he recommends another brother of his order, Fra Antonio. That his judgement in this matter was equal to his generosity is proved by the fact that Antonio became the wisest archbishop Florence had ever had.

The successor of Pope Eugenius, Nicholas V., also extended his friendship and protection to the painter. Here in Rome he lived for the last ten years of his life. His work here was largely confined to the chapel of Nicholas V., in the Vatican, which he decorated with scenes from the lives of St. Lawrence and St. Stephen. For years this chapel was closed to the public and the key lost, so that when it was re-opened it seemed as if a new set of works belonging to Fra Angelico had been discovered.

When the heat of summer came on in Rome, the painter from the hills of the Arno wilted under the depressing influence and he longed for his native heights. An opportunity for release from the stagnant weather of Rome during the months of June, July and August came from an unexpected quarter. It was the time of the building of the great Italian cathedrals. Every large community seemed bent on excelling its neighbor in the splendor of the church it erected. Florence reared her Duomo, the Santa Maria del Fiore, Siena built her fine cathedral, striped black and yellow like a tiger.

Orvieto, near by, had witnessed a wonderful miracle, and in remembrance of it her citizens determined to build a cathedral that should be more beautiful than any other in Italy. So much in earnest were the people of Orvieto in undertaking this work, that they gave their holidays to drawing materials for it from the hills near by. In eight years, an incredibly short time in the building of a mediaeval cathedral, it was sufficiently finished for holding religious services. It was three hundred years, however, before the people had made it the wrought jewel that it stands to-day.

In the delicacy and elaborateness of its ornament it is the most splendid church in Italy. A hundred and fifty skilled sculptors worked their best on the carving. Nearly a hundred workers in mosaic put together cunningly the bits of glass and precious stones which make its rich and vari-colored mosaic. Almost as many master painters added their work to the precious structure. The facade is like some grand screen, with its exquisite bas-relief, its glistening and intricate mosaic and its delicate pinnacles, every one crowned with a statue.

Such a beautiful and substantial structure was a fine crown for this ancient town, rising almost like a rock-cube from the barren ravines below. It was to help adorn this wonderful church that the building council urged Fra Angelico to quit Rome each year through the sickly summer. All arrangements were completed and our artist once more breathed the hill air to which he was born.

On one of the walls he planned to represent "_The Last Judgment_" a subject which he had previously painted. He never proceeded further than to the completion of the figure of the judging Christ. This fragment is the strongest piece of work Angelico ever did. It is probable that the mighty Angelo studied this figure before painting his own "_Last Judgment_." The critic who compares the two Christs must, it seems to me, ever decide in favor of the one made by the Angelical painter. The combination of strength and compassion in Angelico's is far more to our notions of the gentle Christ, sitting as Judge of all the world. If Angelico had finished the work at Orvieto, it would doubtless have been much like the one we may study to-day in the Academy in Florence. Let us consider that for a moment.

It was a strange subject for one with so mild and loving a nature to undertake, but we must remember that it was the favorite theme of the age, so that all sorts of painters tried their hands at it. Here Christ sits enthroned, encircled by angels, while below him, divided by a long line of unopened graves, are the blessed and the condemned. In depicting the former our angel painter was perfectly at home. What a joyous host they are as they tread the flowery meadows and appear in the searching rays of heaven's own light! One group, a monk embraced by an angel, is reproduced in this sketch.

Even if for a time Angelico was able to summon the power by which he could portray an avenging and yet pitying Christ, he lost that power when he tried to image forth the agony of the condemned, the wickedness of Satan. So the picture stands, half in the glory of fine and characteristic execution and half in the darkness of inadequate workmanship.

Just why Angelico never went back to Orvieto we do not know. It is probable that the infirmities of age were pressing upon him. Perhaps, too, he was reserving his surplus strength for a last visit to his beloved Florence. Hither we know he came, in the last years of his life, and painted for the Church of the Annunciation a little cupboard to hold the gold and silver vessels used about the altar. It was a delicate task not wholly unlike the miniature work with which, in his early years, he had adorned the parchments of his monastery.

Thirty-five panels were filled with scenes from the life of our Lord. The series is done in the spirit of a man who knows the Scriptures and medieval legend to a point, and all the time there shines through the painted figures the saintliness, the mystic, far-away thoughts of the artist. It was a beautiful work to give to his home city in the evening of his quiet life.

The work completed, he wended his way back to Rome where he died, in 1455, or, as a contemporary historian says, "Envious death broke his pencil and his beautiful soul winged its way among the angels to make Paradise more joyous." He was buried in the Church of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva where he had lived since his first coming to Rome. His tomb is simple enough, enriched merely with the quaint figure of a Dominican monk, with his hands crossed, and wearing the dress of his order. At the feet of the stone monk is this epitaph, composed by Nicholas V., Angelico's friend and patron--

"Not that in me a new Apelles lived, But that thy poor, O Christ, my gains received; This be my praise: Deeds done for fame on earth Live not in heaven. Fair Florence gave me birth."

What his appearance was we cannot tell with certainty as no authentic portrait of him remains to us. From imaginary and traditional portraits we get our only notions of how the angelical painter looked, and these are likely to fall far short of giving us correct ideas of the face of one whose character was well-nigh faultless.

Living the secluded life of a monk, we should hardly expect to find many pupils to continue his work after him. One there is, however, who is always spoken of as Angelico's pupil, and that is Benozzo Gozzoli, whose angels at times approach in beauty those of the master-painter of angels. Benozzo was the artist who completed the work that Angelico began at Orvieto.

We have found the facts of Angelico's life few and not at all startling and yet his character was such that it left an indelible impress on his age. We cannot better close this sketch than by quoting from Vasari, who thus sums up the character of his devout countryman:--

"This father, truly angelic, spent all his life in the service of God and for the good of the world and his neighbor. In truth, the great and extraordinary powers possessed by Fra Giovanni could not have existed except in a man of most holy life. He was a man of simplicity and most holy in his ways.... He withheld himself from all worldly deeds, and living purely and holily, he was such a friend to the poor that I think his soul is now in heaven.

"He worked continually at his pictures and would never treat any but religious subjects. He might have been a rich man but he cared not to boast, and used to say that true riches consisted in being content with little. He might have had command over many but would not, saying that there was less trouble and risk in obeying than in commanding.... He was most gentle and sober, and, living chastely, freed himself from the snares of the world; and he was wont to say that whoever followed art had need of peace and to live without distracting thoughts, and that he who does work that concerns Christ must live continually with Christ.

"He was never known to get angry with the monks; if anyone desired work from him he would say that he would obtain consent of the Prior to it, and then would not fail to fulfill the request. In fact, this father, who cannot be sufficiently praised, was in all his works and conversation most humble and modest, and in his painting dexterous and conscientious, and the saints of his painting have more the air and resemblance of saints than those of any other painter."

SUBJECTS FOR COMPOSITION AND SPECIAL TOPICS

1. Angels in Art.

2. Savonarola, the Orator of San Marco.

3. Antonio, the Good Archbishop of Florence.

4. The Angel-Painter of San Marco.

5. An Illuminated Manuscript.

6. With Angelico on His Way to Rome.

7. In the Cells of San Marco.

8. How Monasteries Have Served Civilization.

9. A Day with the Dominicans at Fiesole.

10. Some Hill Towns of Tuscany.

11. Two Gothic Cathedrals of Italy. (Siena and Orvieto,)

REFERENCES FOR FRA ANGELICO.

1. Life of Fra Angelico ... _Sweetser_.

2. Life of Fra Angelico ... _Phillimor_.

3. Makers of Florence ... _Oliphant_.

4. Sketches and Studios in Southern Europe. (Orvieto) ... _Symonds_.

5. The Fine Arts ... _Symonds_.

6. Old Italian Masters ... _Cole_.

7. Friar Jerome's Beautiful Book ... _Aldrich_.

8. Art and Artists ... _Clement_.

9. Angels in Art.... _Clement_.

10. The Monk as Civilizer. _Kingsley_.