Page:The painters of Florence from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century (1915).djvu/105

1447] on the vaulted ceiling, among others a fine composition of the Nativity, with a noble and dignified figure of Cardinal Branda among the worshippers at the manger, and a cartellino bearing the words, Masolinus de Florentia pinxit, in the left-hand corner.

The profile of the youthful Madonna and the slender angel-forms recall the types of Masolino's fellow-pupil, Fra Angelico, but the faces have none of the Dominican master's intensity of expression. We see Masolino here at the age of forty-five, still as a distinctly Giottesque designer, timidly attempting to adopt new practices, introducing classic as well as Gothic architecture in his buildings, deeper folds in his draperies, and stronger modelling in his figures. But in the frescoes which Masolino painted seven years later in the Baptistery at Castiglione, we find a striking advance, and there can be little doubt that he returned to Florence during the interval, and became acquainted with the latest developments of the new school. There he found such artists as Paolo Uccello and Andrea del Castagno engaged in working out the latest problems of scientific perspective, and rendering form and movement with the vigorous realism which we admire in Hawkwood of his equestrian portrait. He found his old comrade Ghiberti at work on his second Baptistery gate, and Donatello engaged on the marble singing-gallery with the famous frieze of children, for the Duomo. And in that same Brancacci Chapel, where he had painted his own frescoes a few years before, he now saw the wonderful works of his old scholar, the marvellous youth Masaccio, who, after painting