DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.51584#0202
198 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS.
children and cherubs, and the earnest, ardent ex-
pression in the heads of his saints.
Perugino, in the very beginning of the sixteenth
century, was certainly the most popular painter of
his time; a circumstance which, considering that
Eaphael, Francia, and Lionardo da Vinci were all
working at the same time, would surprise us did
we not know that contemporary popularity is not
generally the recompense of the most distinguished
genius : in fact Perugino has produced some of
the weakest and worst, as well as some of the most
exquisite pictures in the world. He undertook an
immense number of works, and employed his
scholars and assistants to execute them from his
designs. A passion, of which perhaps the seeds
were sown in his early days of poverty and misery,
had taken possession of his soul. He was no longer
excited to labour by a spirit of piety or the generous
ambition to excel, but by a base and insatiable
thirst for gain : all his late pictures, from the year
1505 to his death, betray the influence of this mean
passion. He aimed at nothing beyond mechanical
dexterity, and to earn his money with as little
expense of time and trouble as possible; he became
more and more feeble, mannered, and monotonous,
continually repeating the same figures, actions, and
heads, till his very admirers were wearied; and on
his last visit to Florence, Michael Angelo, who
had never done him justice, pronounced him, with
children and cherubs, and the earnest, ardent ex-
pression in the heads of his saints.
Perugino, in the very beginning of the sixteenth
century, was certainly the most popular painter of
his time; a circumstance which, considering that
Eaphael, Francia, and Lionardo da Vinci were all
working at the same time, would surprise us did
we not know that contemporary popularity is not
generally the recompense of the most distinguished
genius : in fact Perugino has produced some of
the weakest and worst, as well as some of the most
exquisite pictures in the world. He undertook an
immense number of works, and employed his
scholars and assistants to execute them from his
designs. A passion, of which perhaps the seeds
were sown in his early days of poverty and misery,
had taken possession of his soul. He was no longer
excited to labour by a spirit of piety or the generous
ambition to excel, but by a base and insatiable
thirst for gain : all his late pictures, from the year
1505 to his death, betray the influence of this mean
passion. He aimed at nothing beyond mechanical
dexterity, and to earn his money with as little
expense of time and trouble as possible; he became
more and more feeble, mannered, and monotonous,
continually repeating the same figures, actions, and
heads, till his very admirers were wearied; and on
his last visit to Florence, Michael Angelo, who
had never done him justice, pronounced him, with