Bernhard Berenson

The great Florentine artists, as we have seen, were, with scarcely an exception, bent upon rendering the material significance of visible things. This, little though they may have formulated it, was the conscious aim of most of them; and in proportion as they emancipated themselves from ecclesiastical dominion, and found among their employers men capable of understanding them, their aim became more and more conscious and their striving more energetic.

• Assisi.
  
  • S. Francesco, Upper Church. XX-XXV and first of Frescoes recounting the Life of St. Francis, done perhaps under Giotto’s directions. XXVI-XXVIII of same series done more upon his own responsibility.
    
    • Lower Church, Chapel of the Sacrament. Frescoes: Legend of St. Nicholas; Christ with SS. Francis and Nicholas and Donors, etc. (?). Before 1316. Madonna between SS. Francis and Nicholas (?).
      

• Assisi.
  
  • S. Francesco, Lower Church, Over Tomb of Saint. Frescoes: Allegories of Poverty, Chastity, and Obedience, and Triumph of St. Francis. (The Francis between the two Angels in the “Obedience” and nearly all of the “Triumph” were executed by another hand, probably C.)
    
    • R. Transept.
      

Well, it was of the power to stimulate the tactile consciousness—of the essential, as I have ventured to call it, in the art of painting—that Giotto was supreme master. This is his everlasting claim to greatness, and it is this which will make him a source of highest æsthetic delight for a period at least as long as decipherable traces of his handiwork remain on mouldering panel or crumbling wall.

• Berlin.
  
  • Von Kaufmann Collection. Head of female Saint.
• Florence.
  
  • Bargello. 139. Angel playing Viol.
  • Or San Michele. Tabernacle. Finished 1359.

• Agram (Croatia).
  
  • Strossmayer Collection: Albertinelli, Fra Angelico, Bugiardini, Cosimo Rosselli.
• Aix-en-Provence.
  
  • Musée: Alunno di Domenico.
• Altenburg.
  
  • Lindenau Museum: Amico di Sandro, Fra Angelico, Lorenzo Monaco, Mainardi, Pesellino, Pier Francesco Fiorentino, Sellajo.
• Amsterdam.
  
  <

It is a temptation to hasten on from Pollaiuolo and Verrocchio to Botticelli and Leonardo, to men of genius as artists reappearing again after two generations, men who accomplished with scarcely an effort what their precursors had been toiling after.