DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.51584#0056
52
EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS.
best works; and two Madonnas, with graceful
angels. In the gallery of the Academy of Arts, in
the same city, are more than twenty small pictures
(the best works of Giotto are on a small scale—
these measure about a foot in height) : two of the
same series are at Berlin, all representing subjects
from the life and acts of Christ, of the Virgin, or
St. Francis. Those who are curious may consult
the engravings after Giotto in the plates to the
‘ Storia della Pittura ’ of Rosini; those in D’Agin-
court’s ‘ Histoire de 1’Art par les Monumens and
in Ottley’s ‘ Early Italian School,’ a copy of which
is in the British Museum.
Giotto’s personal character and disposition had
no small part in the revolution he effected. In the
union of endowments which seldom meet together
in the same individual — extraordinary inventive
and poetical genius, with sound, practical, energetic
sense, and untiring activity and energy—Giotto
resembled Rubens; and only this rare combination
could have enabled him to fling off so completely
all the fetters of the old style, and to have executed
the amazing number of works which are with rea-
son attributed to him. His character was as in-
dependent in other matters as in his own art. He
seems to have had little reverence for received
opinions about anything, and was singularly free
from the superstitious enthusiasm of the times in
which he lived, although he lent his powers to
EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS.
best works; and two Madonnas, with graceful
angels. In the gallery of the Academy of Arts, in
the same city, are more than twenty small pictures
(the best works of Giotto are on a small scale—
these measure about a foot in height) : two of the
same series are at Berlin, all representing subjects
from the life and acts of Christ, of the Virgin, or
St. Francis. Those who are curious may consult
the engravings after Giotto in the plates to the
‘ Storia della Pittura ’ of Rosini; those in D’Agin-
court’s ‘ Histoire de 1’Art par les Monumens and
in Ottley’s ‘ Early Italian School,’ a copy of which
is in the British Museum.
Giotto’s personal character and disposition had
no small part in the revolution he effected. In the
union of endowments which seldom meet together
in the same individual — extraordinary inventive
and poetical genius, with sound, practical, energetic
sense, and untiring activity and energy—Giotto
resembled Rubens; and only this rare combination
could have enabled him to fling off so completely
all the fetters of the old style, and to have executed
the amazing number of works which are with rea-
son attributed to him. His character was as in-
dependent in other matters as in his own art. He
seems to have had little reverence for received
opinions about anything, and was singularly free
from the superstitious enthusiasm of the times in
which he lived, although he lent his powers to