Page:Women in the Fine Arts From the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentiet.djvu/21

xiv with this view, and the study of these four centuries is of absorbing interest.

Although the thirteenth century long preceded the practice of art by women, its influence was a factor in the artistic life into which they later came. In this century Andrea Tafi, Guido da Siena, and other devoted souls were involved in the final struggles of Mediæval Art, and at its close Cimabue and Duccio da Siena—the two masters whose Madonnas were borne in solemn procession through the streets of Florence and Siena, mid music and the pealing of bells—had given the new impulse to painting which brought them immortal fame. They were the heralds of the time when poetry of sentiment, beauty of color, animation and individuality of form should replace Mediæval formality and ugliness; a time when the spirit of art should be revived with an impulse prophetic of its coming glory.

But neither this portentous period nor the fourteenth century is memorable in the annals of women artists. Not until the fifteenth, the century of the full Renaissance, have we a record of their share in the great rebirth.

It is important to remember that the art of the Renaissance had, in the beginning, a distinct office to fill in the service of the Church. Later, in historical and decorative painting, it served the State, and at length, in portrait and landscape painting, in pictures of genre subjects and still-life, abundant opportunity was afforded for all orders of talent, and the generous patronage of art by church, state, and men of rank and wealth, made Italy a veritable paradise for artists.