Fra Angelico: A Sketch

Art manifests whatever is most exalted, and it manifests it to all —TAINE
BY JENNIE ELLIS KEYSOR Author of Sketches of American Authors
EDUCATIONAL PUBLISHING COMPANY BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO SAN FRANCISCO
The art of Angelico, both as a colorist and a draughtsman, is consummate; so perfect and so beautiful that his work may be recognized at a distance by the rainbow-play and brilliancy of it: however closely it may be surrounded by other works of the same school, glowing with enamel and gold, Angelico's may be told from them at a glance, like so many huge pieces of opal among common marbles.
—JOHN RUSKIN.
The light of his studio came from Paradise.
—PAUL DE ST. VICTOR.
His world is a strange one—a world not of hills and fields and flowers and men of flesh and blood, but one where the people are embodied ecstasies, the colors tints from evening clouds or apocalyptic jewels, the scenery a flood of light or a background of illuminated gold. His mystic gardens, where the ransomed souls embrace and dance with angels on the lawns outside the City of the Lamb, are such as were never trodden by the foot of man in any paradise of earth.
Fra Angelico's Madonnas are beings of unearthly beauty, and words fail to convey any idea of their ineffable loveliness and purity. His angels too are creatures of another sphere, and purer types have never yet been conceived in art. The drawing of the hands of his angels and Madonnas is most exquisite—charming in tender yet subtle simplicity of outline.
—TIMOTHY COLE.
Copyrighted, 1900, by EDUCATIONAL PUBLISHING Co.
Let us for a few moments turn our attention to a monastery a short distance from Florence. From its elevated position on the hills which skirt the vale of the Arno it commands a panoramic view of the Lily City. It is the time when the Renaissance is virgin new to the world. Faith was still so real and living a thing that men and women shut themselves up from the world in order to live holy lives and devote themselves entirely to the service of God.