g who never opened his
eyes, closed in prayer, excepting to paint--the monk who had never
looked out on the world, who had seen only within himself.

And what we know of his life is worthy of this work. He was a humble and
tender recluse, who always prayed or ever he took up his brush, and
could not draw the Crucifixion without melting into tears.

Through the veil of his tears his angelic vision poured itself out in
the light of ecstasy, and he created beings that had but the semblance
of human creatures, the earthly husk of our existence, beings whose
souls soared already far from their prison of flesh. Study his picture
attentively, and see how the incomprehensible miracle works of such a
sublimated state of mind.

The types chosen for the Apostles and Saints are, as we have said, quite
ordinary. But gaze firmly at the countenances of these men, and you will
see how little they really take in of the scene before them. Whatever
attitude the painter may have given them, they are all absorbed into
themselves; they behold the scene, not with the eyes of the body, but
with the eyes of the soul. Each is looking into himself. Jesus dwells in
them, and they can gaze on Him better in their inmost heart than on His
throne.

It is the same with his female Saints. I have said that they are
insignificant looking, and it is true; but how their features, too, are
transfigured and effaced under the Divine touch! They are drowned in
adoration, and spring buoyant, though motionless, to meet the Heavenly
Spouse. Only one remains but half escaped from her material shell: Saint
Catherine of Alexandria, who, with upturned eyes of a brackish green, is
neither as simple nor as innocent as her sisters; she still sees the
form of man in Christ; she still is a woman; she is, if one may so, the
sin of the work.

Still, all these spiritual degrees clothed in human figures are but the
accessories of this picture. They are placed there, in the august
assumption of gold and the chaste ascending scale of blue, to lead by a
stair of pure joy to the sublime platform whereon we see the group of
the Saviour and the Virgin.

And here, in the presence of the Mother and Son, the ecstatic painter
overflows. One could imagine that the Lord had merged into him, and
transported him beyond the life of sense, love and chastity are so
perfectly personified in the group above all the means of expression at
the command of man.

No words could express the r