Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/808

 772 F li E 8 preparation of a flesh tint, a certain quantity of lime, b tanco- sangtovanut, was mixei with red ; in another pot the same red, with much more lime ; two equal portions of these tints were mixed in the third pot : thus three equal gradations were secured. A head, hand, or any part of the body being drawn on the wet plaster with fine lines with the brush, the shadows were painted with terra vert, then, the lightest flesh tint being taken, the lights were put in. This done, the middle tint was applied, the junctions between the two tints being carefully softened ; next the darker colour was laid in, all these tones being fused together in a proper way. The operations were repeated till sufficient solidity impasto was obtained. Another and much lighter tone served to mark the high lights, such as those on the nose, chin, and parts of the ears ; lastly, the small and most brilliant points of light were touched with pure white, and the whites of the eyes were painted. The artist next out lined the nostrils, eyelids, and apertures of the ears with black, touched in the lower eyelids and the eyebrows with shades of sinopia, and with the same colour the nostrils, upper lip, and the line between the lips. The hair was broadly shaded with terra vert, and washed over with light ochre ; then the locks were defined with dark ochre, and the lights pencilled with a much lighter tint of the same ; lastly, the outlines were strengthened with sinopia. Such usually were the methods pursued by Giotto and his fol lowers. It is evident that painting thus, according to a fixed system, a master and his trained pupils could act together and harmonize their work in a manner otherwise unattainable. At the same time the individuality of the artist was not obliterated by this prevalence of rule. In the frescos attributed to Giotto and his followers or com peers, it is not difficult to distinguish the different handi work. In some the green shadows are modified with a warmer tint ; in others the results are cold and formal ; some paint with soft gradations, others in a harder manner, but the difference between the artists is still more observ able in the drawing and proportions of the figures. As guiding cartoons were not prepared by the master; pro bably the assistants or pupils were only provided with his sketches, which they enlarged on the wall with such skill as they possessed ; hence the varieties of proportion which are so remarkable. Draperies were painted with graduated colours prepared in the same way ; the lights, according to the usage of the Tuscan school, were heightened with pure white, and the shadows were glazed with washes of unmixed colour, show ing that the intonaco must have been damp when these were applied or they would not have adhered. Thus in these pictures the most important part of the work was pure fresco, whilst the tempera, although undoubtedly used, was less freely applied by Giotto than by his master Cimabue and his predecessors, judging from the mural paintings at Assisi. To the taste and genius of Giotti was owing this great improvement in the technical pro cesses of mural painting. The architectural details, where they occur as accessories or backgrounds, are carefully drawn and painted with in finite grace, and as architectural designs they are singularly beautiful, especially in the works of Giotto. It is true that they are invariably too small in proportion to the figures, a peculiarity which they probably owe to the imitation of similar adjuncts in ancient Roman bassi-rilievi. The con ventional routine of thus designing backgrounds lasted for rather more than a hundred and fifty years. There is an appearance of perspective, showing observation, but no knowledge of optical laws. The method was in every re spect analogous to that which regulated the drawing of very similar details in ancient Roman art. These mediaeval mural pictures in Italy place painting much more upon an equality with the sister arts of archi tecture and sculpture than was the case in other parts of Europe ; they exhibit intense thought, sentiment, and as cetic religious expression. They have not the weird gran deur and sublimity of the designs of Cimabue, nor do they ahow efforts like his to represent ideal beauty ; but they approach much more nearly towards the representation of familiar nature, aud the expression of human emotion. Still this art was conventional; of the infinite and beautiful variety of inanimate nature, or of its effects of sunshine and shade, the artists had no perception whatever. The idea that painting possessed such a power had not yet been awakened ; but at the beginning of the 15th cen tury a genius was born who led it into new paths, and ex ercised a good influence upon it, which produced the most beneficial results. Tommaso da San Giovanni, called Ma- saccio, was this great painter. Another artist, at the present time of a more widespread reputation, divides the honours of the first portion of the 15th century with Masaccio, to whom, however, he was far inferior in originality or per ception of nature s variety and beauty. This was Fra Beato Augelico (see FIESOLE). He continued the technical pro cesses of the artists of the preceding century, and in his work mediaeval painting culminated and became perfect technically ; but before he left the scene of his loving labours he was so far influenced by the rising wave of the revival that he abandoned Gothic forms in his accessories for timid imitations of classic architecture. In practice Fra Beato adhered to the last to the precepts of the older school, but with a freshness of colour, a beauty of form, and a grace of manipulation all his own. He finished his mural pictures with solid distemper of such peculiar excellence very probably employing gum traga- canth, so insoluble is the mixture that it remains com paratively unchanged ; and he transmitted to his successors the old schemes of preparatory grounds in fresco for the subsequent finishing coats in tempera, which for so long a period characterized monumental art. This is observable in many of his numerous works, and especially in his great mural painting of the Crucifixion in the chapter house of St Mark s, Florence. In conformity with traditional custom, he laid in the sky in deep red in preparation for blue, which, however, has never been applied. It is to be regretted that the pious artist did not finish this liia most important work, but it illustrates in a very remarkable way how far he carried fresco before having recourse to distemper. The great and gifted painter Masaccio relinquished the precepts which had guided his predecessors and were practised by his contemporary Fra Beato, as he departed from theirmethods of composition, drawing, and chiaroscuro. His insight into the true appearances of nature was that ot genius, and he painted these with fidelity, and not con ventionally, like the older masters. His art was a reve lation : he burst through the routine by which painting had hitherto been bound ; it may be said that he anticipated all that was to be done after him, and that no artist, however great, of those who followed him could escape finding in the works of this wonderful originator anticipations of his own qualities as an artist. They were studied as models by the greatest artists of succeeding times, by Michelangelo, and by Raphael, who imitated him to the extent of plagi arism. Standing before the frescos of Masaccio we are introduced to new rules destined at a future time to regu late the practice of the art. No frescos hitherto painted had been so pure ; they are not entirely free from retouch ing in distemper, but this was reduced to a minimum, yet with the attainment of a richness of colour and a force of chiaroscuro never surpassed. Masaccio could paint the effects of sunlight with extraordinary power and brilliancy ;