sco representing the "Triumph of St.
Thomas" which incarnates the idea it symbolises, which, without its
labelling instrument, would convey any meaning whatever? One pretty
woman holds a globe and sword, and I am required to feel the majesty of
empire; another has painted over her pretty clothes a bow and arrow,
which are supposed to rouse me to a sense of the terrors of war; a third
has an organ on what was intended to be her knee, and the sight of this
instrument must suffice to put me into the ecstasies of heavenly music;
still another pretty lady has her arm akimbo, and if you want to know
what edification she can bring, you must read her scroll. Below these
pretty women sit a number of men looking as worthy as clothes and beards
can make them; one highly dignified old gentleman gazes with all his
heart and all his soul at--the point of his quill. The same lack of
significance, the same obviousness characterise the fresco representing
the "Church Militant and Triumphant." What more obvious symbol for _the_
Church than _a_ church? what more significant of St. Dominic than the
refuted Paynim philosopher who (with a movement, by the way, as obvious
as it is clever) tears out a leaf from his own book? And I have touched
only on the value of these frescoes as allegories. Not to speak of the
emptiness of the one and the confusion of the other, as compositions,
there is not a figure in either which has tactile values,--that is to
say, artistic existence.

While I do not mean to imply that painting between Giotto and Masaccio
existed in vain--on the contrary, considerable progress was made in the
direction of landscape, perspective, and facial expression,--it is true
that, excepting the works of two men, no masterpieces of art were
produced. These two, one coming in the middle of the period we have been
dwelling upon, and the other just at its close, were Andrea Orcagna and
Fra Angelico.

[Page heading: ORCAGNA]

Of Orcagna it is difficult to speak, as only a single fairly intact
painting of his remains, the altar-piece in S. Maria Novella. Here he
reveals himself as a man of considerable endowment: as in Giotto, we
have tactile values, material significance; the figures artistically
exist. But while this painting betrays no peculiar feeling for beauty of
face and expression, the frescoes in the same chapel, the one in
particular representing Paradise, have faces full of charm and grace. I
am tempted to believe that we h