Page:The painters of Florence from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century (1915).djvu/195

 XIII

BENOZZO GOZZOLI

1420-1498

the Carmelite friar was bearing Masaccio's message in a more popular form to the world, a follower of Fra Angelico, Benozzo Gozzoli, was continuing his saintly master's work on a lower spiritual level, in a more homely and ordinary style, This amiable and industrious artist, who painted a larger number of frescoes than any of his contemporaries, had neither Angelico's inspiration nor Fra Lippo's genuine artistic gifts. He studied Masaccio and the Naturalists carefully, and tried to imitate their clever foreshortenings, but he remained far behind Paolo Uccello and his followers in knowledge of the human form. His perspective is often faulty, and his drawing careless and slovenly; but as a story-teller and illustrator he has few rivals, and the frescoes which he painted with such marvellous rapidity are of rare interest, as pages of contemporary history which bring the life of the court and the life of the schools, the Medici and the humanists, the labourers in the vineyards and gardens of Tuscany, all in turn before our eyes.

Benozzo, surnamed Gozzoli—the thick-throated—was the son of a small Florentine tradesman—liter- 161