Page:Charles Moore--Development and Character of Gothic Architecture.djvu/330

Rh in treatment marks the individual character of the work; but it is not in technical points alone that the superiority of early Italian painting is apparent. The grace and sentiment of French design are often exquisite, but are less constant than in the work of the early Italian painters. The art of Cimabue at the close of the thirteenth century shows an improvement upon the severe conventions of French painting in the delicate gradations and pencillings which give a new touch of nature to flesh and to draperies; while the works of Giotto display the higher qualities of original genius, together with the imperfections which belong to an art in which entire mastery has yet to be acquired.

Among the earliest examples of mediæval wall painting in Italy are those of the Church of St. Francis of Assisi. The architecture of this church is, as we have seen, essentially different from the Gothic; without its paintings the interior effect would be bald in the extreme. The large wall spaces, the absence of great expanses of brilliantly coloured glass to offer trying competition with the quiet tones of fresco, and the sufficiency of subdued light, rendered this building as inviting to the mediæval painter as a well-prepared canvas is to a painter of modern times. But unlike the modern painter on movable canvas, the mediæval Italian, called to paint upon the walls of churches, had constantly forced upon his mind the monumental purpose of his art—an habitual reference to which naturally develops the grandest characteristics of painting. This purpose led him to regard his wall space as a field to be embellished with colour, and although he had also a didactic and representative intention, yet he instinctively felt that everything else must be subordinated to a decorative scheme. His panel had primarily to be divided into fields of colours, whose arrangements should produce bright and harmonious effects which should be pleasing to the eye when regarded without reference to any pictorial design. But, in addition to this ruling ornamental motive, the intention of telling a story through a life-like rendering of figures and other objects was constant in his mind. The scenic representation at which he aimed was in no degree antagonistic to decorative effectiveness. In fact, as a general principle, there is far less