he robe of St. John,
and then, higher still before reaching the blue expanse of the sky, the
robe of the first angel.

The first on the right is the mantle of St. Cecilia; others are the
bodice of St. Agnes, St. Stephen's robe, a prophet's tunic; and above
these, before reaching the lapis-lazuli border of sky, the robe of the
first angel.

Thus blue, which is the predominating colour in the whole, is regularly
piled up in steps and spaced almost identically on the opposite sides of
the throne. This azure hue of the draperies, their folds faintly
indicated with white, is extraordinarily serene, indescribably innocent.
This it is which gives the work its soul of colour--this blue, helped
out by the gold which gleams round the heads, runs or twines on the
black robes of the monks; in Y's on those of St. Thomas; in suns, or
rather in radiating chrysanthemums, on those of St. Antony and St.
Benedict; in stars on St. Clara's hood; in filagree embroidery in the
letters of their names, in brooches and medallions on the bodices of the
other female saints.

At the very bottom of the picture a splash of gorgeous red--the
Magdalen's robe--that finds an echo in the flame-colour of one of the
steps of the throne, and reappears here and there, but softened in
fragmentary glimpses of drapery, or smothered under a running pattern of
gold (as in St. Augustine's cope) serves as a spring-board, as it were,
to start the whole stupendous harmony.

The other colours seem to fill no part, but that of necessary stop-gaps,
indispensable supports. They are too, for the most part, common and ugly
to a degree that is most puzzling. Look at the greens: they range from
boiled endive to olive, ending in the absolute hideousness of two steps
of the throne which lie across the picture--two bars, two streaks of
spinach dipped in tawny mud. The only tolerable green of them all is
that of St. Agnes' mantle, a Parmigiano green, rich in yellow, and made
still richer by the lining which affords the pleasing adjunct of orange.

On the other hand, consider this blue which Angelico uses so sumptuously
in his celestial tones; when he makes it darker it loses its fulness,
and looks almost dull; we see this in St. Clara's hood.

But what is yet more amazing is that this painter, so eloquent in blue,
is but a stammerer when he makes use of the other angelic
hue--rose-pink. In his hands it is neither subtle nor ingenuous; it is
opaque, of the colour of blood t