Page:The painters of Florence from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century (1915).djvu/117

1428] to painting. "From the first," says Vasari, "he realised that painting is nothing else but the simple imitation of natural objects in drawing and colour, and by unwearied study he overcame the difficulties and imperfections of art. He was the first to give his figures beautiful attitudes, natural movement, vivacity of expression, and a relief similar to reality. Instead of representing figures standing on tiptoe, as his predecessors had done, he placed their feet firmly on the ground and foreshortened them properly, and he understood perspective so well that he could apply it to every variety of view. He was careful to make the colour of his draperies agree with the tones of his flesh, and gave them the same few and simple folds that we see in nature. And it may be truly said that the things that were done before his time can be called paintings, but that his works are life, truth and nature."

But with this new realism Masaccio combined a dramatic sense, a feeling for beauty and a grandeur of conception worthy of Giotto himself. It is the presence of these lofty qualities, together with his wonderful advance in scientific knowledge, in perspective and chiaroscuro, that make the decoration of the Brancacci Chapel an epoch in art. The first fresco of the series was the fall of Man, which adorns the pilaster at the entrance of the chapel, and, as might be expected, is the most in Masolino's style. Indeed the face of Eve and the action of the hands are so exactly in that master's manner, that we are inclined to think the original design was by his hand, as may well be the case. But even here there is more roundness, and solid relief than in any of the Castiglione