W. J. Stillman

“ Cole’s selection, as the manner of portraiture is by the head from the crowd at the end of the proces sion which Benozzo marked as his own. One sees that it is caught from life, but in the way that a sculptor would have studied it, for pure form and character.
In color the work has neither the gaiety of Fra Angelico nor the elementary harmony of Fra Filippo; nor has it, from the very nature of the subject,—being a long procession trailing around the room,— the majesty of composition that he had learned from Masaccio. It is a work in all its qualities sui generis. ”

“ There is no advance towards realism, but a complete abandonment of the visionary and ecstatic type so marked in Fra Angelico. We come down to plain flesh and blood, and every personage in this long procession has posed for the drawing made for it. It is the most extraordinary agglomeration of pose-plastique in all the range of the Renaissance; and in the densest part of the crowd, and no matter what his action, every actor turns his face more or less so as to be seen and recognized by those who know him. ”

“ Vasari’s somewhat amusing commentary on him is that he was "of great invention, very fertile in animals, in perspective, in landscapes, and in ornament. He produced so much during his life that it is plain he cared for no other occupation ”