08

THE ANGEL-LIKE BROTHER

T HE houses where monks lived together are called monasteries. The monks are known as “brothers” because they are supposed to treat one another and every one else like brothers. In some churches the members call one another brother and sister.

In Florence, the City of Flowers, was a monastery called St. Mark’s, for the Apostle who wrote the second book of the New Testament. In this monastery of St. Mark’s lived a monk who, because he was so very good and holy, was called the Angel-like Brother. In his language, which was Italian,Brother Angel-like was Fra Angelico. It may seem strange that a monk should become a great artist, but Fra Angelico had a talent for drawing and painting and he painted Bible pictures on the walls of the rooms in his monastery.

The rooms where the monks slept were called cells because they were so plain and bare that they were almost like cells in a prison. There were forty of these cells and Fra Angelico spent most of his life in painting them so that the monks would have scenes from the Bible to look at and think about. These pictures were painted in fresco, of course.Besides these, Fra Angelico painted movable pictures on wooden panels in tempera, which, as I have told you, was color mixed with something sticky, like egg or glue.

Fra Angelico lived about a hundred years later than Giotto, but his style was very much like Giotto’s style. It is said that always before starting to paint a picture, he prayed long and earnestly. Then when he did set to work on a painting, he never changed a brush stroke, but left everything he did just as he first put it down. For he believed that the Lord had guided his hand, and that therefore no correction should be made. Of course, being such a religious man, he painted nothing but religious pictures — pictures of saints and angels — and he received no pay whatever for his work.

There was one religious subject that painters of that time loved to paint. It is called the Annunciation. You remember the Bible says that an angel came to the Virgin Mary and told her that she was to have a Son who was to be Christ the Lord. This is called the Annunciation — that is, the announcement to Mary that she was to be the mother of the Lord. Fra Angelico painted an Annunciation which, I think, you’ll agree is very sweet and lovely. In this picture, the Virgin Mary is seated on a stool on the porch of her home,with her arms folded across her breast. An angel messenger who has just descended from heaven, half kneels to tell Mary that she is to have a Divine Son.

The monks of St. Mark’s were not allowed to talk to one another except at certain times, as a special treat. They had to keep silent most of the time. Think of keeping silent, for one single day, or even for one hour, if there were any one around to talk to! That rule was made so that the monks might keep their thoughts always on God and religion and not waste their time in gossip or other worthless talk. Over a doorway in St. Mark’s monastery, Fra Angelico painted a picture of Saint Peter with his finger on his lips, to remind the monks that they must be silent.

The monastery of St. Mark has been made a museum for the paintings of Fra Angelico. It now contains most of his movable paintings as well as the fresco paintings on the cell walls. One of these movable paintings now in the St. Mark’s monastery is a picture of the Virgin Mary with the Christ Child. The Virgin Mary is called “My Lady”, and this, in Italian, is Madonna. So such a picture is called a Madonna.

For hundreds of years, thousands of pictures of the Madonna were painted. In fact, every artist painted at least one Madonna and often many Madonnas. Each church had to have one or more Madonnas. And every family that could afford to have any painting at all had a Madonna hanging on the walls, just as every family nowadays usually has at least one Bible in the house.

The Madonna that Fra Angelico painted is in a broad gold frame. Usually the frame of a picture is just a frame — a fence to separate it from the wall and other things on the wall — and has no beauty in itself. But on this particular frame, Fra Angelico painted twelve angels playing different musical instruments. Thousands of colored post cards and other copies of these angels have been made, and you may have one of the pictures in your own house. Have you?