nual dexterity; and the temerity
of which certainly did not cease to spur him on until the day when I
believe insurmountable difficulties revealed themselves, for, if
Rembrandt resolved some of them, there are many that he could not
resolve.

_Maitres d'Autrefois_ (Paris, 1876).

THE RAPE OF HELEN

(_BENOZZO GOZZOLI_)

COSMO MONKHOUSE

Though the patronage of art had shifted partly from the Church to the
great magnates, especially the great commercial princes like the Medici
at Florence, her influence was still paramount, and though secular
subjects were not uncommon, the vast majority of paintings executed for
patrons, whether clerical or lay, were still religious in subject. It is
not therefore, surprising that among the artists of the Fifteenth
Century, many of whom were monks and all Church painters, we find a
distinct cleavage dividing artists whose aim was to break away from all
traditions--realists--classicists--in a word, reformers, from artists
who clung tenaciously to the old ideals, and whose main aim was still
the perfection of devotional expression.

[Illustration: THE RAPE OF HELEN.
_Gozzoli_.]

It was to the former class that Benozzo Gozzoli belonged, pupil though
he was of Fra Angelico. Although his special quality may be partly
discerned in the altar-piece that hangs above his master's _predella_,
in the strongly marked character of the saints, and perhaps more in the
carefully studied goldfinches, there was little scope in such a subject
for the exercise of his imagination or the display of his individuality.
It is different with the little panel opposite, _The Rape of Helen_
(No. 591), in which he has depicted with great liveliness and gusto a
scene from a classical legend. Possibly, to Fra Angelico, who regarded
painting only as a means of edification, its employment on such a
subject may have seemed little less than sacrilege, not unlike the use
of a chancel for the stabling of horses. Such views can scarcely be said
to be extinct now, and this is the more remarkable as no one has the
same feeling with regard to the other arts, such as sculpture or poetry.
To a young man like Benozzo, and many others of his day, not monks, nor
specially devout in disposition, it must, nevertheless, have been a
change which was welcome. To paint the _Virgin enthroned with Saints_
over and over again, must have been a little wearisome to men conscious
of a fancy to which they could give n