William Michael Rossetti

“ A folio series of engravings from these paintings was published in Florence, in 1852. Along with Gozzoli already mentioned, Zanobi Strozzi and Gentile da Fabriano are named as pupils of the Beato.
We have spoken of Angelico’s art as “pietistic”; this is in fact its predominant character. His visages have an air of rapt suavity, devotional fervency and beaming esoteric consciousness, which is intensely attractive to some minds and realizes beyond rivalry a particular ideal—that of ecclesiastical saintliness and detachment from secular fret and turmoil. ”

“ In S. Domenico, Fiesole, a few frescoes, less fine than those in S. Marco; also an altarpiece in tempera of the Virgin and Child between Saints Peter, Thomas Aquinas, Dominic and Peter Martyr, now much destroyed. The subject which originally formed the predella of this picture has, since 1860, been in the National Gallery, London, and worthily represents there the hand of the saintly painter. The subject is a Glory, Christ with the banner of the Resurrection, and a multitude of saints, including, at the extremities, the saints or beati of the Dominican order ”

“ All these works are later than the altarpiece which Angelico painted (as before mentioned) for the choir connected with this convent, and which is now in the academy of Florence; it represents the Virgin with Saints Cosmas and Damian (the patrons of the Medici family) , Dominic, Peter, Francis, Mark, John Evangelist and Stephen; the pediment illustrated the lives of Cosmas and Damian, but it has long been severed from the main subject. In the Uffizi gallery, an altarpiece, the Virgin (life-sized) enthroned, with the Infant and twelve angels. ”

“ His first works executed in fresco were probably those, now destroyed, which he painted in the convent of S. Domenico in this city; as a fresco-painter, he may have worked under, or as a follower of, Gherardo Starnina. From 1418 to 1436 he was back at Fiesole; in 1436 he was transferred to the Dominican convent of S. Marco in Florence, and in 1438 undertook to paint the altarpiece for the choir, followed by many other works; he may have studied about this time the renowned frescoes in the Brancacci chapel in the Florentine church of the Carmine and also the paintings of Orcagna. ”

“ These works of the painter’s advanced age, which have suffered somewhat from restorations, show vigour superior to that of his youth, along with a more adequate treatment of the architectural perspectives. Naturally, there are a number of works currently attributed to Angelico, but not really his ”