I beg the reader to observe to stimulate our consciousness of tactile values
Picture's have power as the object represented to our tactile imagination
Well it was the power to stimulate tactile consciousness of essential
The mediæval skies had been torn asunder and a new heaven and a new earth had appeared, which the abler spirits were already inhabiting and enjoying
The thing of sovereign price was the power to subdue and to create; of sovereign interest all that helped man to know the world he was living in and his power over it
In such an age the figure artist can thrive, as Giotto did only in spite of it and as an isolated phenomenon the Renaissance the figure artist had a demand
Greek days, to reveal to a generation believing in man’s power to subdue and to possess the world, the physical types best fitted for the task
And as this demand was imperative and constant, not one, but a hundred Italian artists arose, able each in his own way to meet it their combined achievement
In sculpture Donatello had already given body to the new ideals when Masaccio began his brief career, and in the education, the awakening, of the younger artist
A type gains vastly in significance by being presented in some action along with other individuals of the same type; and here Donatello was apt, rather than to draw his meed of profit
Masaccio was untouched 29 by this taint. Types, in themselves of the manliest, he presents with a sense for the materially significant which makes us realise to the utmost their power and dignity
Giotto’s paintings on the contrary, have not only as much power of appealing to the tactile imagination as is possessed by the objects represented human figures in particular but actually more, with the necessary result
We whose current knowledge of anatomy is greater, who expect more articulation and suppleness in the human figure, who, in short, see much less naïvely now than Giotto’s contemporaries
At the risk of seeming to wander off into the boundless domain of æsthetics, we must stop at this point for a moment to make sure that we are of one mind regarding the meaning of the phrase
The spiritual significance thus gained he uses to give the highest import to the event he is portraying; this import, in turn, gives a higher value to the types Masaccio keeps us on a high plane of reality and significance. In later painting we shall easily find greater science, greater craft, and greater perfection of detail, but greater reality, greater significance, I venture to say, never
Dust-bitten and ruined though his Brancacci Chapel frescoes now are, I never see them without the strongest stimulation of my tactile consciousness. I feel that I could touch every figure, that it would yield a definite resistance to my touch, that I should have to expend thus much effort to displace it, that I could walk around it
In short, I scarcely could realise it more, and in real life I should scarcely realise it so well, the attention of each of us being too apt to concentrate itself upon some dynamic quality Then what strength to his young men, and what gravity and power to his old! How quickly a race like this would possess itself of the earth, and brook no rivals but the forces of nature! Whatever they do simply because it is they is impressive and important, and every movement, every gesture, is world changing
Compared with his figures those in the same chapel by his precursor, Masolino are childish and those by his follower unconvincing without significance
Masaccio like Giotto a century earlier himself the Giotto of an artistically more propitious world was, as an artist, a great master of the significant
In a career of but few years he gave to Florentine painting the direction it pursued to the end. In many ways he reminds us of the young Bellini
As it was, his frescoes at once became, and for as long as there were real artists among them remained, the training-school of Florentine painters.
Paintings on the contrary, have not only as much power of appealing to the tactile imagination as is possessed by the objects represented human figures in particular but actually more, with the necessary result
We whose current knowledge of anatomy is greater, who expect more articulation and suppleness in the human figure, who, in short, see much less naïvely now than Giotto’s contemporaries
At the risk of seeming to wander off into the boundless domain of æsthetics, we must stop at this point for a moment to make sure that we are of one mind regarding the meaning of the phrase
Masaccio’s death left Florentine painting in the hands of three men older, and two somewhat younger than himself, all men of great talent, if not of genius, each of whom
