DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.68668#0130
86
THE ROOF
writes to him in August, wishing it were
possible to ride to Florence to look after him,
adding: “ All the labour which I have
endured has been more for your sake than
my own.” He was well aware, too, that
his enemies had urged his being employed
as a painter, in the fond hope that he would
fail. He knew this, and before beginning
he distrusted his own powers; but once
started, he cast aside all cares, all misgivings :
We cannot doubt that he discovered himself
to be fully equal to the task, and that there
must have been times when he knew the
joy and intoxication of supreme mastery and
creation.
It was in the autumn of 1508 that he at
length began the painting. For some time
he found the practice of fresco-painting
difficult, and though there is no sign of
a prentice hand in any of the existing work,
it is easy to trace a progress to greater
freedom and perfection. Vasari relates his
despair’ when in the winter the damp ap-
peared on some of his pictures; this, which
arose from some defect in the lime, had to
THE ROOF
writes to him in August, wishing it were
possible to ride to Florence to look after him,
adding: “ All the labour which I have
endured has been more for your sake than
my own.” He was well aware, too, that
his enemies had urged his being employed
as a painter, in the fond hope that he would
fail. He knew this, and before beginning
he distrusted his own powers; but once
started, he cast aside all cares, all misgivings :
We cannot doubt that he discovered himself
to be fully equal to the task, and that there
must have been times when he knew the
joy and intoxication of supreme mastery and
creation.
It was in the autumn of 1508 that he at
length began the painting. For some time
he found the practice of fresco-painting
difficult, and though there is no sign of
a prentice hand in any of the existing work,
it is easy to trace a progress to greater
freedom and perfection. Vasari relates his
despair’ when in the winter the damp ap-
peared on some of his pictures; this, which
arose from some defect in the lime, had to