XI
FRA FILIPPO LIPPI
1406-1469
After the death of Masaccio, the foremost artists in Florence were two friars, the Dominican Fra Angelico and the Carmelite Fra Filippo Lippi. But although both were members of religious orders, and both worked at the same period, the lives and art of the two men present the greatest possible contrast. While Fra Angelico was a saint who saw in every picture a direct act of worship, Fra Lippo was a gay and pleasure-loving worldling, who felt ill at ease in his friar's habit, and gladly availed himself of his art as a means of escape from the cloister. "He was very fond of good company," says Vasari, "and himself led a free and joyous life." His dreams were all of earth, and his thoughts never soared beyond the gladness and beauty of the natural world. He paints the merry, curly-headed boys whom he met in the streets of Florence as cherubs, takes his mistress as a model for his Madonnas, and peoples the court of heaven with fair maidens in rich attire and dainty head-gear. A thorough-going realist at heart, his naturalism differed wholly from that of his contemporaries, Paolo Uccello or Andrea del Castagno. He never troubled his head with scientific problems or
