DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61290#0072
48 DANTE ROSSETTI
like Heine’s “decayed gods, who, to maintain
themselves after the fall of paganism, took em-
ployment under the new religion.” The physical
loveliness of the saints and angels of Botticelli and
Fra Angelico—the last of the purely “ religious ”
painters, in the common acceptance of the word-
is hardly congruous with the loftiness of their
themes, and almost belies the spiritual intensity
and rapture of thought which Botticelli, in later
life, drew largely from the influence of Savonarola,
and infused increasingly into his own work.
Giotto, the pride of the Florentine school and the
dominant genius of the fourteenth century, was no
less profoundly religious than these ; but in the
final roll of art he ranks rather as the first great
ACzz'z/nj-painter than as one of a distinctly Christian
lineage. Taken, like David, from the sheepfold,
he brought into art a breezy, pastoral air, and
painted before a wide horizon under an open sky.
Fra Lippo Lippi added to that wholesome strength
and sanity of sight an even clearer perception of
natural beauty and grace. The glories of the
physical realm, in landscape, in the power of men
and in the loveliness of women, were handled now
with a growing boldness which outran the delicate
timidity that had restrained it in the shadow of the
Church. And with the enlargement of intellectual
range there came a steady increase of technical
power. The skill of choice, of selectiveness in art,
like Heine’s “decayed gods, who, to maintain
themselves after the fall of paganism, took em-
ployment under the new religion.” The physical
loveliness of the saints and angels of Botticelli and
Fra Angelico—the last of the purely “ religious ”
painters, in the common acceptance of the word-
is hardly congruous with the loftiness of their
themes, and almost belies the spiritual intensity
and rapture of thought which Botticelli, in later
life, drew largely from the influence of Savonarola,
and infused increasingly into his own work.
Giotto, the pride of the Florentine school and the
dominant genius of the fourteenth century, was no
less profoundly religious than these ; but in the
final roll of art he ranks rather as the first great
ACzz'z/nj-painter than as one of a distinctly Christian
lineage. Taken, like David, from the sheepfold,
he brought into art a breezy, pastoral air, and
painted before a wide horizon under an open sky.
Fra Lippo Lippi added to that wholesome strength
and sanity of sight an even clearer perception of
natural beauty and grace. The glories of the
physical realm, in landscape, in the power of men
and in the loveliness of women, were handled now
with a growing boldness which outran the delicate
timidity that had restrained it in the shadow of the
Church. And with the enlargement of intellectual
range there came a steady increase of technical
power. The skill of choice, of selectiveness in art,