Bernhard Berenson

We are happily far better situated toward Fra Angelico, enough of whose works have come down to us to reveal not only his quality as an artist, but his character as a man. Perfect certainty of purpose, utter devotion to his task, a sacramental earnestness in performing it, are what the quantity and quality of his work together proclaim.

It would be difficult to find more effective illustration of all that has just been said about movement than one or two of Pollaiuolo’s own works, which, in contrast to most of his achievements, where little more than effort and research are visible, are really masterpieces of life-communicating art. Let us look first at his engraving known as the “Battle of the Nudes.” What is it that makes us return to this sheet with ever renewed, ever increased pleasure? Surely it is not the hideous faces of most of the figures and their scarcely less hideous bodies.

Leonardo and Botticelli, like Michelangelo after them, found imitators but not successors. To communicate more material and spiritual significance than Leonardo, would have taken an artist with deeper feeling for significance; to get more music out of design than Botticelli, would have required a painter with even greater passion for the re-embodiment of the pure essences of touch and movement.

Let us look now at an even greater triumph of movement than the Nudes, Pollaiuolo’s “Hercules Strangling Antæus.” As you realise the suction of Hercules’ grip on the earth, the swelling of his calves with the pressure that falls on them, the violent throwing back of his chest, the stifling force of his embrace; as you realise the supreme effort of Antæus, with one hand crushing down upon the head and the other tearing at the arm of Hercules, you feel as if a fountain of energy had sprung up under your feet and were playing through your veins.