Page:The Life of Benvenuto Cellini Vol 1.djvu/25

Rh age than of any one individual.

It is the fashion in these scientific days to put the "document" in the foreground and leave "the spirit of things "to take care of itself, as a volatile, tricksy quality, full of danger for the unwary. "There never was an artistic period," said Mr. Whistler. "There never was an art-loving nation." That kind of a remark wears a convincing air. For a moment one hesitates to contradict. But he who hesitates in this matter is unquestionably lost. You cannot put your finger on some unmistakable source of inspiration in fifteenth-century Italy and say that it acted automatically, making masters out of all the artists coming within the range of its influence. But you can discern at this time an element which presently disappears, a general atmosphere, dominant in Italian life, which, for the artist, serves both as a stimulus and as a check upon his professional conscience. This atmosphere dies down as the great body of creative artists shrinks in size, and in all things, in politics and in social life as well as in art, Italy begins to show signs of exhaustion, of decadence. Traditions survive, but in a sadly debilitated condition. Cellini cherishes the highest ideals of goldsmithing, and it is plain from the opening pages of his treatise on that subject that he considered himself as one of the line of Ghiberti, Pollaiuolo, Donatello and Verrocchio; but he was nothing of the sort. The gods had begun to withdraw their gifts from Italy when Cellini saw the light in 1500. In truth they had lingered in lavish