His interest
is neither in the untempered goodness of Angelico's saints, nor the
untempered evil of Orcagna's _Inferno_; but with men and women, in
their mixed and uncertain condition, always attractive, clothed
sometimes by passion with a character of loveliness and energy, but
saddened perpetually by the shadow upon them of the great things from
which they shrink. His morality is all sympathy; and it is this
sympathy, conveying into his work somewhat more than is usual of the
true complexion of humanity, which makes him, visionary as he is, so
forcible a realist.
It is this which gives to his Madonnas their unique expression and
charm. He has worked out in them a distinct and peculiar type, definite
enough in his own mind, for he has painted it over and over again,
sometimes one might think almost mechanically, as a pastime during
that dark period when his thoughts were so heavy upon him. Hardly any
collection of note is without one of these circular pictures, into
which the attendant angels depress their heads so naively. Perhaps you
have sometimes wondered why those peevish-looking Madonnas, conformed
to no acknowledged or obvious type of beauty, attract you more and
more, and often come back to you when the Sistine Madonna and the
Virgins of Fra Angelico are forgotten.
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