Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 1.djvu/326

312 which the excellent and admirable Masaccio delivered entirely from the manner of Giotto, as regards the heads, the carnations, the draperies, buildings, and colouring; he also restored the practice of foreshortening, and brought to light that modern manner which, adopted in his own time, has been followed by all artists, and is pursued by our own, even to this day; gradually receiving the addition of a better grace, more fertile invention, and richer ornament; embellished and carried forward, in short, as may be seen more particularly set forth in the life of each artist; nor can we fail to remark that a new mode of colouring and foreshortening was introduced, with more natural attitudes, and a much more effectual expression of feeling in the gestures and movements of the body, art seeking to approach the truth of Nature by more correct design, and to exhibit so close a resemblance to the countenance of the living man, that each figure might at once be recognized as the person for whom it was intended. Thus the masters constantly endeavoured to reproduce what they beheld in Nature, and no more; their works became, consequently, more carefully considered and better understood. This gave them courage to impose rules of perspective, and to carry the foreshortenings precisely to the point which gives an exact imitation of the relief apparent in Nature and the real form. Minute attention to the effects of light and shade, and to various difficulties of the art, succeeded, and efforts were made to produce a better order of composition. Landscapes, also, were attempted. Tracts of country, trees, shrubs, flowers, the clouds, the air, and other natural objects, were depicted, with some resemblance to the realities represented, insomuch that we may boldly affirm, that these arts had not only become ennobled, but had attained to that flower of youth from which the fruit afterwards to follow might reasonably be looked for, and hope entertained that they would shortly reach the perfection of their existence.

We will now then, with the help of God, give commencement to the life of Jacopo della Quercia, the Sienese, and afterwards narrate those of other architects and sculptors until we reach that of Masaccio, who, being, as he was, the first to ameliorate the practice of design among painters, may be said to have contributed largely to the new' revival of art. I have selected Jacopo della Quercia for the honoured leader