DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61542#0136
102
FRA ANGELICO
[1387-
be free from worldly cares, and that he who would do the
work of Christ must live continually with him. He was
never known to be impatient with the brothers—a thing to
me almost incredible ! and when people asked him for a
picture, always replied that with the Prior’s approval he
would try and satisfy their wishes. He never corrected or
re-touched his works, but left them as he first painted them,
saying that such was the will of God. He never took his
pencil up without a prayer, and could not paint a Crucifixion
without the tears running down his cheeks. And the saints
which he painted are more like saints in face and expression
than those of any other master. And since it seemed that
saints and angels of beauty so divine could only be painted
by the hand of an angel, he was always called Fra
Angelico.”
/
But although this angelic painter—Angelicas Pictor,
as he is termed by a Prior of Santa Maria Novella,
who wrote in his life-time—was in sympathy with many
forms of mediaeval thought, it would be a mistake
to suppose that he was a reactionary who carried
on Giottesque traditions into the fifteenth century.
When he entered the Dominican Order, at twenty, he
had already served his apprenticeship in Stamina’s
shop, and had been closely associated with the leaders
of the new movement. The sculptor Nanni di
Banco, the precursor of Donatello and assistant of
Brunellesco, was his intimate friend, and through him
the young painter must early have been familiar with
the aims and ideas of these men. At the same time
he was brought into contact with Lorenzo Monaco,
whose methods of colouring he adopted, and whose
example may have decided him to enter the cloister.
Fra Angelico was born in 1387, at Vicchio, in Vai
FRA ANGELICO
[1387-
be free from worldly cares, and that he who would do the
work of Christ must live continually with him. He was
never known to be impatient with the brothers—a thing to
me almost incredible ! and when people asked him for a
picture, always replied that with the Prior’s approval he
would try and satisfy their wishes. He never corrected or
re-touched his works, but left them as he first painted them,
saying that such was the will of God. He never took his
pencil up without a prayer, and could not paint a Crucifixion
without the tears running down his cheeks. And the saints
which he painted are more like saints in face and expression
than those of any other master. And since it seemed that
saints and angels of beauty so divine could only be painted
by the hand of an angel, he was always called Fra
Angelico.”
/
But although this angelic painter—Angelicas Pictor,
as he is termed by a Prior of Santa Maria Novella,
who wrote in his life-time—was in sympathy with many
forms of mediaeval thought, it would be a mistake
to suppose that he was a reactionary who carried
on Giottesque traditions into the fifteenth century.
When he entered the Dominican Order, at twenty, he
had already served his apprenticeship in Stamina’s
shop, and had been closely associated with the leaders
of the new movement. The sculptor Nanni di
Banco, the precursor of Donatello and assistant of
Brunellesco, was his intimate friend, and through him
the young painter must early have been familiar with
the aims and ideas of these men. At the same time
he was brought into contact with Lorenzo Monaco,
whose methods of colouring he adopted, and whose
example may have decided him to enter the cloister.
Fra Angelico was born in 1387, at Vicchio, in Vai