Page:The painters of Florence from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century (1915).djvu/69

 III

THE GIOTTESCHI

1330—1430

change which Giotto had wrought in art had been so great, the advance on all who had gone before him was so marvellous, that well-nigh two centuries were needed to work out the problems which he had solved as it were by instinct. In his hands Italian art became a genuine expression of national character, and so fully did he give utterance to the thoughts of his age, that for many years his followers had only to repeat his types or apply his principles to other subjects in order to find general acceptance. The result of Giotto's predominance in Trecento art is, that the personalities of different artists are all of them more or less absorbed in this one master, and that it becomes difficult to single out the characteristics of his individual followers. Instead of going straight to nature, as Giotto had done, they were content to copy his figures and imitate his compositions, until they too 47