DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.68796#0113
chap, in The Scenic-Picture 93
Personality only truly revealed itself in movement and
action, and these touched human life at every point. A
divine narrative, not the Divine Personality in repose, was
the theme of the Christian artist, and all the actions of the
subsidiary beings were in accord with the one typical narra-
tive, and so became worthy subjects for the highest artistic
treatment. All that Saints and Angels did was in harmony
with the recognised ideals of conduct, and in Christian
mythology the picturesque was always moral, while it was
seldom so in Greek.
§ 63. The large scenic picture ; how it was conceived
and wrought.
Hence both the characteristics of mediaeval religion,
and the general view of human life current in the Italian
cities, made for the adoption of the large scenic picture,
rather than the single sculptured form, as the most suitable
vehicle of artistic expression. These scenes were each con-
ceived of as a whole, not after Hellenic fashion as a collec-
tion of more or less isolated groups, but they were treated
only in their broad external aspects without much concen-
tration of feeling or searching into nature’s more recondite
beauties, and were fixed as it were in a single plane. Of
depth and distance or effects of light and shade the Floren-
tine was careless, and would not break for these his serene
and even delineation. The technical traditions of his art
came in this matter to his aid. The fresco painting he
practised was a well-established form of wall decoration
inherited by him from his classical forerunners, and as such
it invited to a flat treatment of the picture, and to rapid
unlaboured handling. It was moreover a handicraft pur-
sued upon a workshop system, and this implied an assured
technique advancing from the inception to the completion
Personality only truly revealed itself in movement and
action, and these touched human life at every point. A
divine narrative, not the Divine Personality in repose, was
the theme of the Christian artist, and all the actions of the
subsidiary beings were in accord with the one typical narra-
tive, and so became worthy subjects for the highest artistic
treatment. All that Saints and Angels did was in harmony
with the recognised ideals of conduct, and in Christian
mythology the picturesque was always moral, while it was
seldom so in Greek.
§ 63. The large scenic picture ; how it was conceived
and wrought.
Hence both the characteristics of mediaeval religion,
and the general view of human life current in the Italian
cities, made for the adoption of the large scenic picture,
rather than the single sculptured form, as the most suitable
vehicle of artistic expression. These scenes were each con-
ceived of as a whole, not after Hellenic fashion as a collec-
tion of more or less isolated groups, but they were treated
only in their broad external aspects without much concen-
tration of feeling or searching into nature’s more recondite
beauties, and were fixed as it were in a single plane. Of
depth and distance or effects of light and shade the Floren-
tine was careless, and would not break for these his serene
and even delineation. The technical traditions of his art
came in this matter to his aid. The fresco painting he
practised was a well-established form of wall decoration
inherited by him from his classical forerunners, and as such
it invited to a flat treatment of the picture, and to rapid
unlaboured handling. It was moreover a handicraft pur-
sued upon a workshop system, and this implied an assured
technique advancing from the inception to the completion