Sister of the Angels: Week 2
Niccoline Chapel, Fra Angelico, Integrity & Tender moments
“Life might be terrible sometimes… but it was nice to think how people could comfort themselves by making things.”
🌟 Elizabeth Goudge, Sister of the Angels
Welcome a discussion about Sister of the Angels!
It is interesting to compare the artistic elements in Sister of the Angels to that of Goudge’s later novel, Pilgrim’s Inn (The Herb of Grace). They contain, in some ways, a very similar story: a weary artist finding inspiration in an ancient fresco tucked away in a chapel. Here in Sister of the Angels as in Pilgrim’s Inn, the artists are so inspired by art from the past that they fling themselves into making new are in response to it. Like readers finding rest and inspiration from the pages of old books, the down-trodden painter in Sister of the Angels finds rest and inspiration in the creative vision of the first Nicolas, and the whole Eliot family finds rest in their chapel at Pilgrim’s Inn.
Speaking of art: the delightful illustrations for Sister of the Angels were done by C Walter Hodges, an illustrator that Goudge loved to work with both before and after his service in WWII. His art gives the story a delightful fairytale quality. You just just see his signature and the year 1939 on the roof of the chapel illustration below.
Glad you can join us today for a look at the Vatican chapel that inspired Goudge’s Nicolas Chapel, the real Fra Angelico, and how Goudge added tender moments for Father & Daughter…
“It was all so clear to Henrietta. If Nicolas de Malden had painted the second coming upon the other walls of course he would have painted the first coming up on this one. That, to her, was obvious. Nicholas would not have frightened people by portraying God the just and terrible judge unless at the same time he had comforted them with a picture of God the Child who himself enjoyed the whole range of human suffering from birth to death.”
🌟 Elizabeth Goudge, Sister of the Angels
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