There is little indication of the technical glories
of succeeding centuries. Perhaps the best part of the picture is in the
lower margin. Here are four heads of saints, painted with a breadth and
energy absolutely startling, when one recollects by whom and when they were
executed. Dominic Ghirlandaio, two hundred years later, could hardly have
put more masculine expression into a quartet of heads.
Giotto's Madonna is the pendant to that of Cimabue; but although painted
twenty-five years later, it shows less progress in art than might be
expected. Giotto's triumphs are to be found in the frescos of the
Santa Croce. In that unequalled series, the art-student recognizes,
almost at a glance, the power of the master. Largeness, rhythm, and
harmony of composition,--dramatic movement, and individual beauty of
expression,--heads which have brains, eyes which can smile, lips which can
speak, fluent limbs which can move, or remain in natural repose,--the whole
surrounded and inspired by that atmosphere of piety, that effluence of
religious ecstasy, which can never be imitated, and which came from the
unquestioning faith of the artist;--such wonders were for the first time
revealed by Giotto.
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