But to return to the doors of the presses in the SS. Annunziata, it is true, as Rio writes, that instead of being a series of subjects for future frescoes or altar-pieces, the "stories" seem a hasty resumé, often too hasty, of works already painted in the convent of San Marco or other places. Some of them are noticeable for firmness of design and vigour of colouring, others instead are unworthy of the master and evidently show another hand.
To give this great work its due appreciation we must take it as a whole, as the profound genius of Fra Angelico had conceived it. Wishing to give it the unity of a dramatic poem, he placed at the beginning and at the end, like a prologue and an epilogue, two symbolic figures, in the last of which the seven branched candlestick serves as a support to the Old and New Testaments.[54]
We may enumerate among the best scenes the "Flight into Egypt," the "Slaughter of the Innocents," the "Betrayal of Judas," the "Dead Christ," and the "Resurrection of Lazarus," all composed in Giottesque style: but, when we think of the progress of Fra Angelico in art as shown in the frescoes in San Marco, and his best panel paintings, we cannot avoid noticing a certain want of vigour in these presses.
Having become accustomed to the grander methods of fresco painting, in which his talent and ability found greater scope for expression,—even though not attaining to the ease and force of some of his contemporaries and followers,—Fra Angelico must have now found himself at the disadvantage, natural to one who, after moving free in wider space, is suddenly cramped into narrower confines. This explains why we find in some of these small panels, greater conventionality in the representation of scenes and action, and less ease and correctness of execution. We might add also, that many of them, where these defects are especially evident, may be ascribed to other hands, less clever than his own, those of his assistants who were called in to expedite the work and assist the artist.
Rio believes that two of Angelico's paintings, one of which was once in the Dominican monastery of San Vincenzo d'Annalena, and the other in that of the Frati dell'Osservanza in Mugello, but now both at the Belle Arti, were executed later than the frescoes in the Vatican, to which they offer an extraordinary resemblance, not perceivable in the artist's earlier works.[55]
THE SYMBOLIC WHEEL.
