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 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

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 places of dignity in the brotherhood of his Order, and also in the world; but he