DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.51584#0071
GIOTTO.
67
a head; and the best preserved are faded, dis-
coloured, ghastly in appearance, and solemn in sub-
ject. The whole aspect of this singular place, par-
ticularly to those who wander through its long
arcades at the close of day, when the figures on the
pictured walls look dim and spectral through the
gloom, and the cypresses assume a blacker hue, and
all the associations connected with its sacred pur-
pose and its history rise upon the fancy, has in its
silence and solitude, and religious destination,
something inexpressibly strange, dreamy, solemn,
almost awful. Seen in the broad glare of noonday,
the place and the pictures lose something of their
power over the fancy, and that which last night
haunted us as a vision, to-day we examine, study,
criticise.
The building of the Campo Santo was scarcely
finished when the best painters of the time were
summoned to paint the walls all round the interior
with appropriate subjects. This was a work of many
years : it was indeed continued at intervals through
two centuries; and thus we have a series of illus-
trations of the progress of art during its first de-
velopment, of the religious influences of the age,
and even of the habits and manners of the people,
which are faithfully exhibited in some of these most
extraordinary compositions.
Those first executed, in the large chapel and on
the walls of the cloisters, at the end of the thir-
67
a head; and the best preserved are faded, dis-
coloured, ghastly in appearance, and solemn in sub-
ject. The whole aspect of this singular place, par-
ticularly to those who wander through its long
arcades at the close of day, when the figures on the
pictured walls look dim and spectral through the
gloom, and the cypresses assume a blacker hue, and
all the associations connected with its sacred pur-
pose and its history rise upon the fancy, has in its
silence and solitude, and religious destination,
something inexpressibly strange, dreamy, solemn,
almost awful. Seen in the broad glare of noonday,
the place and the pictures lose something of their
power over the fancy, and that which last night
haunted us as a vision, to-day we examine, study,
criticise.
The building of the Campo Santo was scarcely
finished when the best painters of the time were
summoned to paint the walls all round the interior
with appropriate subjects. This was a work of many
years : it was indeed continued at intervals through
two centuries; and thus we have a series of illus-
trations of the progress of art during its first de-
velopment, of the religious influences of the age,
and even of the habits and manners of the people,
which are faithfully exhibited in some of these most
extraordinary compositions.
Those first executed, in the large chapel and on
the walls of the cloisters, at the end of the thir-