DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.68796#0111
CHAP. Ill
Greek and Florentine Art
9i
§ 61. The artistic outcome of the brilliant festal life
of mediaeval Italy.
Such was then the picturesque and brilliant festal life
that was so marked a feature both of ancient Greece and
mediaeval Italy. While under Hellenic skies the human
form, graceful, vigorous, set off not concealed by dress,
offered on every side models of manly and feminine beauty,
along the streets of the Italian city a brilliant throng of gaily-
robed personages flashed in swift movement before the eye
while the scented air was full of song and trumpet peal and
of the clang of bells.
§ 62. The difference between the artistic expression of
the Greeks and Italians.
The Florentine painter felt the spell of these surround-
ings, but he conceived and represented his world in a spirit
different from that of the Greek. The latter, as we have
seen, concentrated upon the single pregnant type all the
interest of his work, but the Italian fed his imagination with
gala sights and sounds, till before it there opened out large
scenes crowded with figures and full of the most varied
incidents and accessories. The difference between the
single figures of Hellenic art and the extensive scenes of
the mediaeval painters, corresponds to the difference between
the characteristics of the plastic and the graphic arts. But
the selection of these arts as appropriate media of artistic
expression rests upon distinctions in national character and
in religion. The Greeks were sculptors because they
possessed great intellectual depth and a strong predilection
for definiteness of form. The Florentines were in the main
painters because their intelligence was keen rather than
profound, their interest almost morbidly restless in all
Greek and Florentine Art
9i
§ 61. The artistic outcome of the brilliant festal life
of mediaeval Italy.
Such was then the picturesque and brilliant festal life
that was so marked a feature both of ancient Greece and
mediaeval Italy. While under Hellenic skies the human
form, graceful, vigorous, set off not concealed by dress,
offered on every side models of manly and feminine beauty,
along the streets of the Italian city a brilliant throng of gaily-
robed personages flashed in swift movement before the eye
while the scented air was full of song and trumpet peal and
of the clang of bells.
§ 62. The difference between the artistic expression of
the Greeks and Italians.
The Florentine painter felt the spell of these surround-
ings, but he conceived and represented his world in a spirit
different from that of the Greek. The latter, as we have
seen, concentrated upon the single pregnant type all the
interest of his work, but the Italian fed his imagination with
gala sights and sounds, till before it there opened out large
scenes crowded with figures and full of the most varied
incidents and accessories. The difference between the
single figures of Hellenic art and the extensive scenes of
the mediaeval painters, corresponds to the difference between
the characteristics of the plastic and the graphic arts. But
the selection of these arts as appropriate media of artistic
expression rests upon distinctions in national character and
in religion. The Greeks were sculptors because they
possessed great intellectual depth and a strong predilection
for definiteness of form. The Florentines were in the main
painters because their intelligence was keen rather than
profound, their interest almost morbidly restless in all