We have spoken of Angelico’s art as “pietistic”; this is in fact its predominant character.  His visages have an air of rapt suavity, devotional fervency and beaming esoteric consciousness, which is intensely attractive to some minds and realizes beyond rivalry a particular ideal—­that of ecclesiastical saintliness and detachment from secular fret and turmoil.  It should not be denied that he did not always escape the pitfalls of such a method of treatment, the faces becoming sleek and prim, with a smirk of sexless religiosity which hardly eludes the artificial or even the hypocritical; on other minds, therefore, and these some of the most masculine and resolute, he produces little genuine impression.  After allowing for this, Angelico should nevertheless be accepted beyond cavil as an exalted typical painter according to his own range of conceptions, consonant with his monastic calling, unsullied purity of life and exceeding devoutness.  Exquisite as he is in his special mode of execution, he undoubtedly falls far short, not only of his great naturalist contemporaries such as Masaccio and Lippo Lippi, but even of so distant a precursor as Giotto, in all that pertains to bold or life-like invention of a subject or the realization of ordinary appearances, expressions and actions—­the facts of nature, as distinguished from the aspirations or contemplations of the spirit.  Technically speaking, he had much finish and harmony of composition and colour, without corresponding mastery of light and shade, and his knowledge of the human frame was restricted.  The brilliancy and fair light scale of his tints is constantly remarkable, combined with a free use of gilding; this conduces materially to that celestial character which so pre-eminently distinguishes his pictured visions of the divine persons, the hierarchy of heaven and the glory of the redeemed.

[v.02 p.0008]

Books regarding Fra Angelico are numerous.  We may mention those by S. Beissel, 1895; V.M.  Crawford, 1900; R.L.  Douglas, 1900; I.B.  Supino, 1901; D. Tumiati, 1897; G. Williamson, 1901.

(W.M.R.)

ANGELL, GEORGE THORNDIKE (1823-1909), American philanthropist, was born at Southbridge, Massachusetts, on the 5th of June 1823.  He graduated at Dartmouth in 1846, studied law at the Harvard Law School, and in 1851 was admitted to the bar in Boston, where he practised for many years.  In 1868 he founded and became president of the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, in the same year establishing and becoming editor of Our Dumb Animals, a journal for the promotion of organized effort in securing the humane treatment of animals.  For many years he was active in the organization of humane societies in England and America.  In 1882 he initiated the movement for the establishment of Bands of Mercy (for the promotion of humane treatment of animals), of which in 1908 there were more than 72,000 in active existence.  In 1889 he founded and became president of the American Humane Education Society.  He became well known as a criminologist and also as an advocate of laws for the safeguarding of the public health and against adulteration of food.  He died at Boston on the 16th of March 1909.