—Browning.
PONTE ALLA CARRAJA, FLORENCE.
At last the morning came when the postponed visit to Santa Maria del Carmine, on the other side of the Arno, was to be made. Miss Sherman had so evidently desired to join in the study of the old painters that Mrs. Douglas suggested to her brother that she be invited to do so, but he had thought it not best.
"The others would not be so free to talk," he said. "I do not wish any constraint. Now we are only a family party,—with the exception of Howard, and I confess that I sometimes wish he did not join us in this." Malcom was again with them, for the first time since they were at Fiesole, and this was enough to make the occasion a particularly joyous one.
The romantic mystery of Masaccio's short life and sudden, secret death, and the wonderful advance that he effected in the evolution of Italian painting of the fifteenth century, had greatly interested them as they had read at home about him, and all were eager to see the frescoes.
"They are somewhat worn and dark," Mr. Sumner said, "and at first you will probably feel disappointed. What you must particularly look for here is that which you have hitherto found nowhere else,—the expression of individuality in figures and faces. Giotto, you remember, sought to tell some story; to illustrate some Bible incident so that it should seem important and claim attention. Masaccio went to work in a wholly different way. While Giotto would say to himself: 'Now I am going to paint a certain Bible story; what people shall I introduce so that this story shall best seem to be a real occurrence?' Masaccio would think: 'I wish to make a striking picture of Peter and John, or any other sacred characters. What story or incident shall I choose for representation that will best show the individual characteristics of these men?'
"Possessing this great love for people, he studied the drawing of the human figure as had never been done before in the history of Christian art. At this time, more than a hundred years after Giotto, artists were beginning to master the science of perspective drawing, and in Masaccio's pictures we see men standing firmly on their feet, and put upon different planes in the same picture; their figures well poised, and true to anatomy. In one of them is his celebrated naked, shivering youth, who is awaiting baptism,—the study of which wrought a revolution in painting."
A little afterward they were standing in the dim Brancacci Chapel of Santa Maria del Carmine, whose walls are covered with frescoes of scenes in the lives of Christ and His apostles. They had learned that there was an artist called Masolino, who, perhaps, had begun these frescoes, and had been Masaccio's teacher; and that a young man called Filippino Lippi had finished them some years after they had been left incomplete by Masaccio's early death.