DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.71556#0061
GIOTTO'S school of art.
31
Angelico da Fiesole, the inimitable delineator of
saintly visions and devout conceptions, borrowed
both from sacred and legendary lore; of whom
Michael Angelo beautifully remarked, that he must
have studied in heaven the faces which he depicted
on earth.
It is true that Giotto was not absolutely the
creator of that new School of which he was the
brightest ornament. We have elsewhere touched
upon the degree in which he shared this glory
with others, —but if their influence was thus pre-
parative, his was decisive and transcendent. It
pervaded Tuscany, it was felt at Siena, it extended
throughout Northern Italy and far beyond its pre-
cincts: the number of his pupils was prodigious;
his independent spirit everywhere prompted im-
provement and invention, but his innovations were
so controlled by a sound judgment that, while he
gave new wings to art, he seldom lost sight of a
due reverence for the conventional types of the
early Church.*
It might have been expected that his chapel at
Padua would have acted influentially not only on
* All that is here said of Giotto is consistent with the admis-
sion that the school of Siena was antecedent to that of Florence ;
that Duccio shared with Cimabue and Giotto in imparting new
life to art in the fourteenth century; and that all three were
more or less indebted (as we have elsewhere shown) to the
example of Nicola Pisano for their emancipation from the
trammels of Byzantine stiffness and barbarism.
31
Angelico da Fiesole, the inimitable delineator of
saintly visions and devout conceptions, borrowed
both from sacred and legendary lore; of whom
Michael Angelo beautifully remarked, that he must
have studied in heaven the faces which he depicted
on earth.
It is true that Giotto was not absolutely the
creator of that new School of which he was the
brightest ornament. We have elsewhere touched
upon the degree in which he shared this glory
with others, —but if their influence was thus pre-
parative, his was decisive and transcendent. It
pervaded Tuscany, it was felt at Siena, it extended
throughout Northern Italy and far beyond its pre-
cincts: the number of his pupils was prodigious;
his independent spirit everywhere prompted im-
provement and invention, but his innovations were
so controlled by a sound judgment that, while he
gave new wings to art, he seldom lost sight of a
due reverence for the conventional types of the
early Church.*
It might have been expected that his chapel at
Padua would have acted influentially not only on
* All that is here said of Giotto is consistent with the admis-
sion that the school of Siena was antecedent to that of Florence ;
that Duccio shared with Cimabue and Giotto in imparting new
life to art in the fourteenth century; and that all three were
more or less indebted (as we have elsewhere shown) to the
example of Nicola Pisano for their emancipation from the
trammels of Byzantine stiffness and barbarism.