Fra Bartolommeo

Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael: the three great names of the noblest period of the Renaissance take our minds from the host of fine artists who worked alongside them. Nevertheless beside these giants a whole host of exquisite artists have place, and not least among them the three painters with whom Mr. Leader Scott has dealt in these pages. Fra Bartolommeo linking up with the religious art of the preceding period, with that of Masaccio, of Piero de Cosimo, his senior student in the studio of Cosimo Roselli, and at last with that of the definitely "modern" painters of the Renaissance, Raphael, Leonardo and Michelangelo himself, is a transition painter in this supreme period. Technique and the work of hand and brain are rapidly taking the place of inspiration and the desire to convey a message. The aesthetic sensation is becoming an end in itself. The scientific painters, perfecting their studies of anatomy and of perspective, having a conscious mastery over their tools and their mediums, are taking the place of such men as Fra Angelico.