Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 1.djvu/187

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If the debt which the richly-endowed artist owes to Nature be a large one—as it doubtless is—still greater is the amount of gratitude due from us to him, seeing that by his cares our cities are enriched with noble erections for use and beauty, as well as with the graceful embellishment of painting, and other ornaments. It is true that artists most commonly acquire fame and riches for themselves by their labours, as did Ambruogio Lorenzetti, a painter of Siena. This master displayed considerable force of invention, with great skill in grouping his figures, of which we find proof in the church of the Friars-Minors in Siena, where there is a historical painting in the cloister, very gracefully executed by his hand. The subject of this work is a youth who becomes a monk, and proceeds with others to the court of the Soldan, where they are scourged, condemned to the gallows, hanged on a tree, and finally decapitated, while a horrible tempest is prevailing. In this picture, Lorenzetti has represented the turmoil of the elements, with the fury of the rain and wind, (against which his figures are struggling), with infinite ability. And from him it is that later masters first acquired the mode of depicting circumstances of this kind, for his portraiture of which, as a thing not previously attempted, he deserves high commendation. Ambruogio was a practised fresco painter, as well as an excellent colourist in distemper; his works in the latter are executed with extreme facility, and evince great talent. This may still be seen in the pic-