8
UNIVERSITY COURIER.
province of Mugello, and the rich valley of the Sieve. In this town there lived a certain Pietro, apparently occupying as respectable position, and well endowed with this world's goods. In the year 1387 a son was born to him who received the name of Guido. At the age of fourteen, young Guido left his home, and we are unable to find how or where he spent the next six years. Some part of this tis time must have been devoted to the study of painting, and some to the preparation for his conventual life. There are no means of knowing, to a certainty, who was his first master, and it is perhaps most natural to suppose that his art, however it might have been founded, was developed by the conventual school of miniature painting. Ere he had reached his twentieth year, "Guido sought the convent which then stood on the slopes of Feisole, over-looking the City of the Lilies, and the most beautiful part of the Vale of Arno. Here, surrounded by the most enchanting scenery, of peaceful glens and arching foliage, the youth began his long career of study and devotion." The new name which Guido assumed in leaving the world was Fra Giovanni, but in later years he was called Fra Angelico, on account of his blameless life, and the inspired beauty of his paintings. At this time his gift for painting was fully recognized, and he might easily have earned from it, as a layman, a competent livelihood. The Order of St. Dominic had already contributed some of the great art treasures of the world both in architecture and sculpture. And now, it remained for Fra Angelico to prove by his numerous and beautiful paintings that his order might claim another distinction from that branch of art. In the Convent of San Dominico of Fiesole, consecrated to religion and faith, Fra Angelico passed more than a quarter of a century, and executed many of his finest works. "The incense from before the altars, the chanting of the worshiping monks, the sound of the bells which called the hours of prayer, entered the cell which he made his studio, and became perpetual admonitions to a pure and consecrated labor."
"Born with the divine instinct of art in his life, nurtured among the glorious scenes of the Appennines, and early taught the technic of painting, it was but natural that the youth should carry the palette under his white robes into the Dominican cloisters."
He always commenced a work with earnest prayer, and would never change a design, believing that he was divinely assisted, and any change would thus be sacrilegious. His works were finished with exquisite care, and there is harmony both in composition and color in all he did. With the beginning of the fifteenth century there appeared a new and independent development of Italian painting which aimed more universally "at a powerful conception of nature, at a more radical study of form, and at more complete perfection of coloring and of perspective." While, however, most of the painters of this epoch followed this new realistic style, and, thus established the sway of modern art, one master, living secluded in the monastery, remained true to the tradition and conceptions of the middle ages,and knew how to infuse a new life into them, by the incomparable fervor and beauty of his feeling. "Fra Angelico stands uniquely prominent, like some late opened wondrous blossom of an almost unknown period, in the midst of the stirrings of a new life."
The Dominican church at Cortona contains several pictures which were executed while Angelico dwelt in
that town. Among these are his later works in fresco, consisting of a Madonna and soints and the four evangelists; delicate, simple,and purely colored compositions.
The decoration of the cells at San Marco is one of the most illustrious manifestations of the artists humility and disregard of earthly praises. He put his utmost skill into these works, although the strict rule of the convent secluded them from the inspection and admiration of the people, they could only be seen by the brethren of the Order. "The cells were severely simple, narrow and low, dimly lighted from little arched windows, arranged in two lines under an open timber roof. They contained barely room for a table, a chair, and a narrow bed, and on these otherwise unornamental walls, the saintly artist painted his luminous frescoes, which Vasari declared to be 'beautiful beyond the power of words to describe.'"
The last ten years of his life were spent in Rome. Soon after his arrival in that city a notable event occurred. The Archbishopric of Florence being vacant, the Pope judged Fra Angelico worthy of that dignity. But when he heard of it Angelico besought His Holiness to provide some other person, as he did not feel himself capable of governing the people. This great act of self abnegation, appears to be the crowning glory of Angelico's religious life,for the Archbishopric of Florence was no empty honor in those days of ecclesiastical power and splendor. The talent of Fra Angelico was great, but it had its limitations yet within its own boundaries he comes as near perfection as human art can ever reach. His chief gift was imaginative spirituality. But he did not have the ability to adequately represent scenes of confusion, terror, and evil. His sinners looked like "sheep in wolves clothing," and his condemned souls appeared "like naughty children."
Finally the angel of death ventured to approach the cell of the blessed painter and summoned him to the actual contemplation of those scenes which he had so often marked in holy dreams. In his sixty-eighth year, on the 18th of February, 1455, Fra Angelico passed away.
Ruskin speaks of him thus, and who can hope to pass beyond him? "The art of Angelico is consummate; so perfect and beautiful that his work may be recognized at any 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 opallying among common marbles. With what comparison shall we compare the angel choirs of Angelico, with the flames on their white foreheads waving brighter as they move, listening, in the pauses of alternate song, for the prolonging of the trumpet blast, and the anniversary psaltry and cymbal, throughout the endless keep, and from all the star shores of heaven?" H.
NORMAL.
The language of two hundred and thirty years ago: "THE GOOD SCHOOLMASTER."
There is scarce any profession in the Commonwealth more necessary, which is so slightly performed. The