Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 1.djvu/405

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The Aretine painter, Parri di Spinello Spinelli, acquired the first principles of his art under the discipline of his father; but being taken to Florence by Messer Messer Leonardo Bruni of Arezzo, was there received into the school of Lorenzo Ghiberti, where many young men were studying under the care of that great master. At that time the doors of San Giovanni were in process of completion, and on the figures of this work Parri di Spinello was employed, as we have before said, with many others. While thus occupied, he contracted an intimacy with Masolino di Panicale, whose mode of drawing pleased Spinelli so much, that he took pains to imitate him in many respects, as he did also the manner of Don Lorenzo degli Angeli in certain others.

The figures of Parri Spinelli are more slender than those of any painter who preceded him; he also gave them much greater length, insomuch that where other masters gave the proportion of ten heads only, Parri gave eleven, and sometimes even twelve: nor are they in the slightest degree ungraceful on that account; slight and flexible, they are always bending either to the right or left, from which circumstance, as it appeared to him, and as he sometimes said, they derive an air of life and spirit. This master painted his draperies very delicately; the folds are rich, and they fall gracefully from the shoulders of his figures to the feet, with good effect. Parri worked extremely well in distemper, but in fresco his colouring is perfect; and he was the first who, in fresco painting, omitted those greenish tints beneath the carnations, which were afterwards painted over with flesh colours in chiaro-scuro, after the manner of paintings in water colours, as had been the custom with Giotto and the other old masters. Parri, on the contrary, used body colours, which he applied with the nicest caution, as his judgment dictated their places; the lights, that is to say, on the points most in relief; the middle tints in their due positions; and the darks towards the outline. By this mode of treatment his works were pro-