Page:An Elementary History of Art.djvu/383

In Florence. 353 were Guido di Pietro, of Fiesole, commonly called Fra Angelico (1387 — 1455) and Filippo Lippi (ab. 1412 — 1469), who may be taken as the representatives of the two great classes into which the painters of the Renaissance became divided, and to which the name of the Mystics or Idealists, and Naturalists, have been given — names still retained by their followers and imitators : the former being those who cultivated beauty as a means to an end, and studied nature only for the sake of furthering that end — the expression of all that is highest and best in the material and spiritual world ; and the latter, those who aimed at the exact imitation of beauty for its own sake, and earnestly studied everything connected w T ith the theory and practice of their art. Fra Angelico da Fiesole, called from the holiness of his life II Beato (the Blessed), entered the order of the Predi- cants at Fiesole at the age of twenty, taking the name of Giovanni, and devoted a long and peaceful life to the cultivation of religious art, never painting any but sacred subjerrt^TanaStev^r accepting payment for anything he did. His principal works are frescoes in the convent of S. Marco, and the church of S. Maria Novella at Florence, and in the chapel of Nicholas V. in the Vatican (Fig. 127); an easel picture, the Coronation of the Virgin, now in the Louvre ; the Adoration of the Magi, and Christ in Glory surrounded by Angels (which once formed the predella of an altar-piece in S. Domenico at Fiesole), both in the National Gallery. Many good works by him are in the Florentine Academy of Fine Arts. They are all alike remarkable for their elevated religious sentiment, the grandeur and ideal beauty of the figures, and the loving finish of every detail. Fra Angelico' s works were the outpourings of his own devout EHA A A