Painting

To confine ourselves, however, as closely as we may to painting, and leaving aside for the present the question of colour, which, as I have already said, is, in Florentine art, of entirely subordinate importance, there were three directions in which painting as Pollaiuolo and Verrocchio found it had greatly to advance before it could attain its maximum of effectiveness: landscape, movement, and the nude. Giotto had attempted none of these.

Never pretty, scarcely ever charming or even attractive; rarely correct in drawing, and seldom satisfactory in colour; in types, ill-favoured; in feeling acutely intense and even dolorous—what is it then that makes Sandro Botticelli so irresistible that nowadays we may have no alternative but to worship or abhor him? The secret is this, that in European painting there has never again been an artist so indifferent to representation and so intent upon presentation.

(LEONARDO DA VINCI)

JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE

We will now turn to The Last Supper, which was painted on the wall of the refectory of St. Maria delle Gratie in Milan.

The place where this picture is painted must first be considered: for here the knowledge of this artist is focussed. Could anything more appropriate, or noble, be devised for a refectory than a parting meal which the whole world will reverence for ever?

(BORDONE)

THÉOPHILE GAUTIER

(GENTILE DA FABRIANO)

F.A. GRUYER

(MURILLO)

AIMÉ GIRON

(VAN DYCK)

JULES GUIFFREY

(BOTTICELLI)

WALTER PATER

(HOLBEIN)

ANTONY VALABRÈGUE