DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.68796#0121
CHAP. Ill
The Cartoons
IOI
chief are saved and set to work to baptize their converts.
In rendering the storm the painter has taxed all the re-
sources of his art, and has filled the scene with incidents
well-conceived if not perfectly rendered. Touches of life
are there showing keen observation and a desire for the
most telling representation of nature possible. As the black
storm-cloud overshadows the scene, the men and women in
the crowd turn up their robes over their heads for shelter;
the soldiers hold up their bucklers and the hail is seen
actually rebounding from the surface of them. The wind
catches the flowing robes of the orientals ; the trees bend
before the blast; all is confusion and terror. In the centre
of the foreground a mounted executioner has fallen under
his horse and runs it through with his sword in the act.
At the extreme right hand of the picture and fitly closing
the series, is the scene where the surviving friars under their
leader are baptizing the folk converted through the sudden
and miraculous hurricane.1
§ 68. Consultation, over Cartoons.
Such are the main features of the design, but only a
portion is as yet drawn out to full size. The third wall has
been first attacked and some of the figures in the scene of
decapitation are already painted in their place. Full-sized
cartoons for most of the rest have been squared out from
the small studies, and it is the cartoon for one of the pro-
strate figures and for an executioner that the apprentices are
at this very moment tracing through upon the wet plaster
1 These scenes are partly taken from a series by Ambrogio Lorenzetti
of Siena, described by Ghiberti in his second Commentary. See Vasari,
ed. Le Monnier, Firenze, 1846, i. p. xxiii. Fragments of the frescoes still
exist and are referred to by Crowe and Cavalcaselle in their notice of the
Lorenzetti, in the History of Painting in Italy, Lond. 1864, ii. p. 134.
The Cartoons
IOI
chief are saved and set to work to baptize their converts.
In rendering the storm the painter has taxed all the re-
sources of his art, and has filled the scene with incidents
well-conceived if not perfectly rendered. Touches of life
are there showing keen observation and a desire for the
most telling representation of nature possible. As the black
storm-cloud overshadows the scene, the men and women in
the crowd turn up their robes over their heads for shelter;
the soldiers hold up their bucklers and the hail is seen
actually rebounding from the surface of them. The wind
catches the flowing robes of the orientals ; the trees bend
before the blast; all is confusion and terror. In the centre
of the foreground a mounted executioner has fallen under
his horse and runs it through with his sword in the act.
At the extreme right hand of the picture and fitly closing
the series, is the scene where the surviving friars under their
leader are baptizing the folk converted through the sudden
and miraculous hurricane.1
§ 68. Consultation, over Cartoons.
Such are the main features of the design, but only a
portion is as yet drawn out to full size. The third wall has
been first attacked and some of the figures in the scene of
decapitation are already painted in their place. Full-sized
cartoons for most of the rest have been squared out from
the small studies, and it is the cartoon for one of the pro-
strate figures and for an executioner that the apprentices are
at this very moment tracing through upon the wet plaster
1 These scenes are partly taken from a series by Ambrogio Lorenzetti
of Siena, described by Ghiberti in his second Commentary. See Vasari,
ed. Le Monnier, Firenze, 1846, i. p. xxiii. Fragments of the frescoes still
exist and are referred to by Crowe and Cavalcaselle in their notice of the
Lorenzetti, in the History of Painting in Italy, Lond. 1864, ii. p. 134.