Note 158 — NUMERICAL CATALOGUE, WITH BIOGRAPHICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE NOTES (continued 7)

Robert Browning, however, notes "the bonne bourgeoisie of his pictures; the dear common folk of his crowds, divinely pure they all are, but fresh from the streets and market-place" (Letters of Robert and E. B. Browning, i. 197). Mr. Langton Douglas in an illustrated monograph on Fra Angelico (1900) lays stress on the painter's "strength and freedom" as shown in the "Adoration of the Magi" at San Marco, or the "San Lorenzo giving alms" in the studio of Pope Nicholas; illustrates the influence of contemporary architecture and sculpture on his work; and characterises him not as "a saint with a happy knack of illustration," but as "an artist who happened to be a saint."