DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.51584#0010
6
EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS.
teenth century, and the race of artists annihilated,
as Vasari would lead us to believe, several con-
temporary painters were living and working in
the cities and churches of Italy previous to 1240;
and it is possible to trace back an uninterrupted
series of pictorial remains and names of painters
even to the fourth century. But in depriving
Cimabue of his false glories, enough remains
to interest and fix attention on the period at
which he lived : his name has stood too long, too
conspicuously, too justly, as a landmark in the
history of art, to be now thrust back under the
waves of oblivion. A rapid glance over the pro-
gress of painting before his time will enable us to
judge of his true claims, and place him in his true
position relative to those who preceded and those
who followed him.
The early Christians had confounded in their
horror of heathen idolatry all imitative art and all
artists; they regarded with decided hostility all
images, and those who wrought them as bound to
the service of Satan and heathenism; and we find
all visible representations of sacred personages and
actions confined to mystic emblems. Thus the
Cross signified Redemption ; the Fish, Baptism; the
Ship represented the Church; the Serpent, Sin or
the Spirit of Evil. When, in the fourth century,
the struggle between paganism and Christianity
ended in the triumph and recognition of the latter,
EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS.
teenth century, and the race of artists annihilated,
as Vasari would lead us to believe, several con-
temporary painters were living and working in
the cities and churches of Italy previous to 1240;
and it is possible to trace back an uninterrupted
series of pictorial remains and names of painters
even to the fourth century. But in depriving
Cimabue of his false glories, enough remains
to interest and fix attention on the period at
which he lived : his name has stood too long, too
conspicuously, too justly, as a landmark in the
history of art, to be now thrust back under the
waves of oblivion. A rapid glance over the pro-
gress of painting before his time will enable us to
judge of his true claims, and place him in his true
position relative to those who preceded and those
who followed him.
The early Christians had confounded in their
horror of heathen idolatry all imitative art and all
artists; they regarded with decided hostility all
images, and those who wrought them as bound to
the service of Satan and heathenism; and we find
all visible representations of sacred personages and
actions confined to mystic emblems. Thus the
Cross signified Redemption ; the Fish, Baptism; the
Ship represented the Church; the Serpent, Sin or
the Spirit of Evil. When, in the fourth century,
the struggle between paganism and Christianity
ended in the triumph and recognition of the latter,