BURNE-JONES: THE ANNUNCIATION
THE ANGELS OF BURNE-JONES
VEROCCHIO: BAPTISM (detail of Leonardo's Angel)
The Burne-Jones type had rounder, more inquiring eyes, thinner cheeks, a sadder mouth, a more willowy figure. It appears often in long, flowing hair, with swirling drapery, and dramatic action. At other times one sees it as a romantic type consumed by a fever of passionate sentiment. The Annunciation shown herewith is not a very good illustration of this. The Madonna has a dull stare in her eyes as though she was something of an invalid, and even the angel has a semi-malarious look. But the melancholy, the sadness, the morbidity, so apparent in Botticelli are also apparent here. The picture is a fine example of the painter's decorative sense. It has been put together with much skill. Notice the architecture, the passageway at back, the bas reliefs, the repeated lines of the draperies in both the Madonna and the angel. One could almost wish it in stained glass, so beautifully would it fill an upright window.
Every painter of Botticelli's rank in Italy had a score or less of followers, and among them all there was never any dearth of sentimental Madonnas and pathetic angels. Florence held no monopoly of the subject.
ANGELS OF BELLINI AND CARPACCIO
At Venice in the early days were Bellini and Carpaccio, who produced famous Madonnas and most lovable angels. They are different angels from those of Botticelli. In fact, they are little more than handsome children naïvely making music for the Madonna and Child. Their unconscious quality is captivating. How very childlike, in their pure faces, their golden hair, their round legs and fat little hands! The models were perhaps the painter's own children. Why not? Was not the Madonna, nine times out of ten, the painter's own wife? And how better could he depict the winged messengers of the sky than by painting them with the forms of those he loved here below? It is only a step across the world from heaven to earth, and is not love the band that unites them?