84. Further, in this particular instance, the ear has by accident been set too far back--(Fra Angelico, drawing only from feeling, was liable to gross errors of this kind,--often, however, more beautiful than other men's truths)--and the hair removed in consequence too far off the brow; in other respects the face is very noble--still more so that of the Christ. The child _stands_ upon the Virgin's knees,[9] one hand raised in the usual attitude of benediction, the other holding a globe. The face looks straightforward, quiet, Jupiter-like, and very sublime, owing to the smallness of the features in proportion to the head, the eyes being placed at about three-sevenths of the whole height, leaving four-sevenths for the brow, and themselves only in length about one-sixth of the breadth of the face, half closed, giving a peculiar appearance of repose. The hair is short, golden, symmetrically curled, statuesque in its contour; the mouth tender and full of life: the red cross of the glory about the head of an intense ruby enamel, almost fire color; the dress brown, with golden girdle. In all the treatment Fra Angelico maintains his assertion of the authority of abstract imagination, which, depriving his subject of all material or actual being, contemplates it as retaining qualities eternal only--adorned by incorporeal splendor. The eyes of the beholder are supernaturally unsealed: and to this miraculous vision whatever is of the earth vanishes, and all things are seen endowed with an harmonious glory--the garments falling with strange, visionary grace, glowing with indefinite gold--the walls of the chamber dazzling as of a heavenly city--the mortal forms themselves impressed with divine changelessness--no domesticity--no jest--no anxiety--no expectation--no variety of action or of thought. Love, all fulfilling, and various modes of power, are alone expressed; the Virgin never shows the complacency or petty watchfulness of maternity; she sits serene, supporting the child whom she ever looks upon, as a stranger among strangers; "Behold the handmaid of the Lord" forever written upon her brow. 85. An approach to an exception in treatment is found in the Annunciation of the upper corridor of St. Mark's, most unkindly treated by our author:-- * * * "Probably the earliest of the series--full of faults, but imbued with the sweetest feeling; there is a look of naive curiosity, mingling with the modest and meek humility of the Virgin, which almost provokes a smile."--iii., 176. * * *