The History of Italian Painting. Luigi Lanzi
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the same forms. Wild as the age in which he lived, he succeeded admirably in heads full of character, especially in those of old men, impressing an indescribable degree of bold sublimity, which the moderns have not been able greatly to surpass. Vast and inventive in conception, he executed large compositions, and expressed them in grand proportions. His two great altar-pieces of the Madonna, at Florence, the one in the church of the Dominicans, the other in that of the Trinity, with the grand figures of the prophets, do not give so good an idea of his style as his fresco paintings in the church of Assisi, where he appears truly magnificent for the age in which he lived. In these histories of the Old and New Testament, such as remain, he appears an Ennius, who, amid the rudeness of Roman epic poetry, gave flashes of genius not displeasing to a Virgil. Vasari speaks of him with admiration for the vigour of his colouring, and justly so of the pictures in the ceiling. They are still in a good state of preservation, and although some of the figures of Christ, and of the Virgin in particular, retain much of the Greek manner, others representing the Evangelists, and Doctors instructing the Monks of the Franciscan Order, from their chairs, exhibit an originality of conception and arrangement that does not appear in contemporary works. The colouring is bold, the proportions are gigantic even in the distance, and not badly preserved; in short, painting may there be said to have almost advanced beyond what the mosaic worker at first attempted to do. The whole of these, indeed, are steps in the progress of the human intellect not to be recounted in one history, and form beyond question the distinguishing excellence of the Florentine artist, when put into competition with either the Pisans or the Sienese. Nor do I perceive how, after the authority of Vasari, who assigns the work of the ceiling to Cimabue, confirmed by the tradition of five centuries, P. della Valle is justified at this day, in ascribing that painting to Giotto, a painter of a milder genius. If he was induced to prefer other artists to Cimabue, because they gave the eyes less fierceness, and the nose a finer shape, these circumstances appear to me too insignificant to degrade Cimabue from that rank which he enjoys in impartial history.[47] He has moreover asserted, that Cimabue neither promoted nor injured the Florentine school by his productions, a harsh judgment, in the opinion of those who have perused so many old writers belonging to the city who have celebrated his merits, and of those who have studied the works of the Florentine artists before his time, and seen how greatly Cimabue surpasses them.
If Cimabue was the Michelangiolo of that age, Giotto was the Raffaello. Painting, in his hands, became so elegant, that none of his school, nor of any other, till the time of Masaccio, surpassed, or even equalled him, at least in gracefulness of manner. Giotto was born in the country, and was bred a shepherd; but he was likewise born a painter; and continually exercised his genius in delineating some object or other around him. A sheep which he had drawn on a flat stone, after nature, attracted the notice of Cimabue, who by chance passed that way: he demanded leave of his father to take him to Florence, that he might afford him instruction; confident, that in him, he was about to raise up a new ornament to the art. Giotto commenced by imitating his master, but quickly surpassed him. An Annunciation, in the possession of the Fathers of Badia, is one of his earliest works. The style is somewhat dry, but shews a grace and diligence, that announced the improvement we afterwards discern. Through him symmetry became more chaste, design more pleasing, and colouring softer than before. The meagre hands, the sharp pointed feet, and staring eyes, remnants of the Grecian manner, all acquired more correctness under him.
It is not possible to assign the cause of this transition, as we are able to do in the case of later painters; but it is reasonable to conclude that it was not wholly produced, even by the almost divine genius of this artist, unaided by adventitious circumstances. There is no necessity for sending him, as some have done, to be instructed at Pisa; his history does not warrant it, and an historian is not a diviner. Much less ought we to refer him to the school of F. Jacopo da Turrita, and give him Memmi and Lorenzetti for fellow pupils, who are not known to have been in Rome when F. Jacopo was distinguished for his best manner. But P. della Valle thinks he discovers in Giotto's first painting, the style and composition of Giunta, (Preface to Vasari, p. 17,) and in the pictures of Giotto at S. Croce, in Florence, which "he has meditated upon a hundred times," he recognizes F. Jacopo, and finds "reason for opining" that he was the master of Giotto. (Vide tom. ii. p. 78.) When a person becomes attached to a system, he often sees and opines what no one else can possibly see or opine. In the same manner Baldinucci wished to refer to the school of Giotto, one Duccio da Siena, Vital di Bologna, and many others, as will be noticed; and he too argues upon a resemblance of style, which, to say truth, neither I nor any one I know can perceive. If I cannot then agree with Baldinucci, can I value his imitator? and more particularly as it is no question here of Vitale, or any other artist of mediocrity, almost unknown to history, but of Giotto himself. Is it likely, with a genius such as his, and born in an age not wholly barbarous, with the advantages enjoyed under Cimabue, especially in point of colouring, that he would take Giunta for his model, or listen to the instruction of Fra Mino, in order to excel his master. Besides, what advantage can be obtained from thus disturbing the order of chronology, violating history, and rejecting the tradition of Giotto's native school, in order to account for his new style?
It is most probable that, as the great Michelangiolo, by modelling and studying the antique, quickly surpassed in painting his master, Ghirlandaio, the same occurred with regard to Giotto. It is at least known that he was also a sculptor, and that his models were preserved till the time of Lorenzo Ghiberti. Nor was he without good examples. There were specimens of antique sculpture at Florence, which may be yet seen near the cathedral, (not to mention those which he afterwards saw at Rome); and their merit, then already established by the practice of Niccola and Giovanni of Pisa, could not be unknown to Giotto, to whom nature had granted such a taste for the exquisite and the beautiful. When one contemplates some of his heads of men; some of his forms, proportioned far beyond the littleness of his contemporaries; his taste in flowing, natural, and becoming drapery; some of his attitudes after the manner of the antique, breathing grace and tranquillity, it is scarce possible to doubt that he derived no small advantage from ancient sculpture. His very defects discover this. A good writer (the author of the Guide of Bologna) remarks in him a style which partakes of statuary, contrary to the practice of contemporary foreign artists; a circumstance very common, as we shall observe, under the Roman school, to those painters who designed from statues. I shall be told that he probably derived assistance from the sculpture of the two Pisani; especially as Baldinucci has discovered a strong resemblance between his style and that of Giovanni, and some others also have noticed the circular compositions, the proportions and casting of the drapery which one perceives in the basso-relievos of the early Pisan school. I would not deny that he also availed himself of them; but it was perhaps in the manner that Raffaello profited by Michelangiolo, whose example taught him to imitate the antique. Nor let it be objected to me that the dryness of the design, the artifice of concealing the feet by long garments, the inaccuracy of the extremities, and similar defects, betray rather a Pisan than an Attic origin. This only proves, that when he became the founder of a style, he did not aim at giving it the perfection of which it was susceptible, and which it could hardly be expected to obtain amid the numerous avocations in which he appears to have been engaged; in short, I cannot persuade myself, that without the imitation of the antique, he could in so short a time have made such a progress, as to have been admired even by Bonarruoti himself.[48]
The first histories of the patriarch S. Francesco, at Assisi, near the paintings of his master, shew how greatly he excelled him. As his work advanced he became more correct; and towards the conclusion, he already manifested a design more varied in the countenances, and improved in the extremities; the features are more animated, the attitudes more ingenious, and the landscape more natural. To one who examines them with attention, the composition appears the most surprising; a branch of the art, in which he seems not only to surpass himself, but even sometimes appears unrivalled. In many historical pictures, he often aimed at ornamenting with buildings, which he painted of a red, or azure, or a yellow, the colours employed in staining houses, or of a dazzling white, in imitation of Parian marble. One of his best pictures in this work is that of a thirsty person, to the expression of which scarcely any thing could be added by the animating pencil of Raffaello d'Urbino himself. With similar skill he painted in the inferior church, and this is perhaps