ation" (in the
Uffizi)--the happiness on all the faces, the flower-like grace of line
and colour, the childlike simplicity yet unqualifiable beauty of the
composition? And all this in tactile values which compel us to grant the
reality of the scene, although in a world where real people are
standing, sitting, and kneeling we know not, and care not, on what. It
is true, the significance of the event represented is scarcely touched
upon, but then how well Angelico communicates the feeling with which it
inspired him! Yet simple though he was as a person, simple and
one-sided as was his message, as a product he was singularly complex. He
was the typical painter of the transition from Mediaeval to Renaissance.
The sources of his feeling are in the Middle Ages, but he _enjoys_ his
feelings in a way which is almost modern; and almost modern also are his
means of expression. We are too apt to forget this transitional
character of his, and, ranking him with the moderns, we count against
him every awkwardness of action, and every lack of articulation in his
figures. Yet both in action and in articulation he made great progress
upon his precursors--so great that, but for Masaccio, who completely
surpassed him, we should value him as an innovator. Moreover, he was not
only the first Italian to paint a landscape that can be identified (a
view of Lake Trasimene from Cortona), but the first to communicate a
sense of the pleasantness of nature. How readily we feel the freshness
and spring-time gaiety of his gardens in the frescoes of the
"Annunciation" and the "Noli me tangere" at San Marco!

IV.

[Page heading: MASACCIO]

Giotto born again, starting where death had cut short his advance,
instantly making his own all that had been gained during his absence,
and profiting by the new conditions, the new demands--imagine such an
avatar, and you will understand Masaccio.

Giotto we know already, but what were the new conditions, the new
demands? The mediaeval skies had been torn asunder and a new heaven and a
new earth had appeared, which the abler spirits were already inhabiting
and enjoying. Here new interests and new values prevailed. The thing of
sovereign price was the power to subdue and to create; of sovereign
interest all that helped man to know the world he was living in and his
power over it. To the artist the change offered a field of the freest
activity. It is always his business to reveal to an age its ideals. But
what