



Produced by Chuck Greif








"_Art manifests whatever is most exalted, and it manifests it to
all_"--TAINE





FRA ANGELICO

A SKETCH

BY

JENNIE ELLIS KEYSOR

_Author of "Sketches of American Authors"_

[Illustration]

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.

[Illustration: FRA ANGELICO]




FRA ANGELICO.

1387--1455.

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.

It is a body of such men on the heights of Fiesole that interests us.
They are Dominican monks, of the order of great preachers, founded long
ago by St. Dominic. Over long white robes the brothers, or frates, as
they are called, wear black capes and back from their tonsured heads
fall hoods, which protect them in inclement weather. It is a prosperous
monastery surrounded by goodly fields. In some, the olive groves blossom
in the spring-like snow, or wear foliage of richest green as the season
advances. In others, the yellowing grain waves in the upland summer
breeze. The monks are busy people, many without in the fields tilling
the fruitful soil or gathering in the abundant harvest.

Indoors there is the silence which attends toil, intense and absorbing.
The cellar and kitchen are in perfect order and in the refectory, or
dining room, the table is spread for the next frugal meal. In the
scriptorium, or writing room, several monks are busy copying ancient
manuscripts on parchment. One does this work, using the most exquisite
lettering, while another indites the hymns long loved by the church.
This other, bending over his task, from a rich palette makes the vine to
run, the dragon to coil, the angel head to shine, the tropic bird to fly
from out the lettering of his book or, more ambitious still, he
decorates a broad margin with an elaborate design. Mayhap he devotes an
entire page to the deliniation of some favorite saint.--

    "What joy it is to labor so,
     To see the long-tressed angels grow
     Beneath the cunning of his hand,
     Vignette and tail-piece subtly wrought!"

Here in the walk of the cloisters, his pallid face lit up by fiery eyes,
strolls another, the preacher of the monastery. To-night he will
electrify his audience with the eloquence of his sermon that shall tell
of the curse of evil, of the saving power of love.

Yonder, with the face and attitude of one who prays, painting a lovely
angel with flame upon her forehead, with stars upon her robe and with a
golden trumpet in her hand, is a man whose fancy has outgrown the
margin, the full page even, of the beloved parchment book, and so he
fills a whole wall with his vision from Paradise. Little need is there
to name this painter-monk. It is Fra Angelico, the