[Illustration: MURILLO: GUARDIAN ANGEL]
At Venice in the early days were Bellini and Carpaccio, who produced
famous Madonnas and most lovable angels. They are different angels
from those of Botticelli. In fact, they are little more than handsome
children naïvely making music for the Madonna and Child. Their
unconscious quality is captivating. How very childlike, in their pure
faces, their golden hair, their round legs and fat little hands! The
models were perhaps the painter's own children. Why not? Was not the
Madonna, nine times out of ten, the painter's own wife? And how better
could he depict the winged messengers of the sky than by painting them
with the forms of those he loved here below? It is only a step across
the world from heaven to earth, and is not love the band that unites
them?
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SUPPLEMENTARY READING.--"Sacred and Legendary Art," Jameson; "Life of
Christ in Art," Farrar; "Christian Iconography," Didron; "Angels of
God," Timpson; "Angels in Art," Clement.