Angelo and Raphael

Christianity helped to make Angelo and Raphael by furnishing them with grand themes. As no lips can be eloquent unless they are speaking in the name of a great truth, so no painter can paint unless some one brings him a great subject. Heaven and hell made the poet, Dante. Christianity made Beatrice. Paradise made John Milton. The mother of our Lord and the last judgment made Angelo. It is the great theme that makes the orator, the painter, the poet. The great theme lifts up the soul and makes it the revealer of a new world. — SWING.