Gentile, with all his Umbrian pietism, was a painter for whom the fair sights of the earth had exquisite value.

The rich costumes of the Eastern kings, their train of servants, their hawks and horses, hounds and monkeys, are painted by him with scrupulous fidelity; and nothing can be more true to nature than the wild flowers he has copied in the framework of this picture.

Yet we perceive that, though he felt in his own way the naturalistic impulse of the age, he had scarcely anything in common with masters like Uccello or Verocchio.
Still less had Fra Angelico.

Of all the painters of this period he most successfully resisted the persuasions of the Renaissance, and perfected an art that owed little to sympathy with the external world.

He thought it a sin to study or to imitate the naked form, and his most beautiful faces seem copied from angels seen in visions, not from any sons of men.