DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.73713#0135
RAPHAEL MENGS.
130
nians, Tuscans, and Romans, worked with the
same rusticity which we see in their matters.
Thus they proceeded dispersing the office of
painting until the Tuscans raised it first from
barbarism by means of Giotto and his school.
These Tuscans continued for some time in the
style of the last Grecians in drapery, and in the
partition of the sigures; because finding them-
selves far from the Germans, and nearer Ro-
man antiquity, and having also the opportu-
nity of seeing the ancient medals, they studied
also these things. After that first school, came
others, which advanced a little more, as the
Masolini, and the Masaccis, which in the air
they gave to their dress, resemble the taste of
Raphael, although he was anterior by almost
an age. The unhappy style which they then in-
troduced, retarded also the progress of the arts,
which was, by placing contemporary persons in
the paintings of Ancient History, with the
dresses they then used in Florence; which in-
jured very much their good taste. Neverthe-
less, they continued to advance in the art, by
copying truth, and by the study of perspe&ive;
by which means, Ghirlandajo found the mode
of a good disposition, and of the exactness of
design. Leonardo da Vinci applied himself to
clare obscure, and to the principal parts of
painting. At the same time it advanced itsels
in the Venitian States, and in Lombardy, by
means of Bellini, Mantegna, Bianchi, and
others; but by the way which all those fol-
lowed, the disciples succeeding in the maxims
130
nians, Tuscans, and Romans, worked with the
same rusticity which we see in their matters.
Thus they proceeded dispersing the office of
painting until the Tuscans raised it first from
barbarism by means of Giotto and his school.
These Tuscans continued for some time in the
style of the last Grecians in drapery, and in the
partition of the sigures; because finding them-
selves far from the Germans, and nearer Ro-
man antiquity, and having also the opportu-
nity of seeing the ancient medals, they studied
also these things. After that first school, came
others, which advanced a little more, as the
Masolini, and the Masaccis, which in the air
they gave to their dress, resemble the taste of
Raphael, although he was anterior by almost
an age. The unhappy style which they then in-
troduced, retarded also the progress of the arts,
which was, by placing contemporary persons in
the paintings of Ancient History, with the
dresses they then used in Florence; which in-
jured very much their good taste. Neverthe-
less, they continued to advance in the art, by
copying truth, and by the study of perspe&ive;
by which means, Ghirlandajo found the mode
of a good disposition, and of the exactness of
design. Leonardo da Vinci applied himself to
clare obscure, and to the principal parts of
painting. At the same time it advanced itsels
in the Venitian States, and in Lombardy, by
means of Bellini, Mantegna, Bianchi, and
others; but by the way which all those fol-
lowed, the disciples succeeding in the maxims