"And oh! isn't that Ginevra de' Benci in the Meeting of Mary and Elizabeth lovely! and her golden brocaded dress!" cried Margery.
"You pay quite a compliment to the old painter's power of representing men and women," said Mr. Sumner, "for these evidently captivated you. I wish I could have overheard you talking by yourselves."
"I fear we could not appreciate the best things, though," said Barbara. "We imagined ourselves in old Florence of the fifteenth century, and tried to recognize the mountains and palaces in the backgrounds, and we enjoyed the people and admired their fine clothes. I do think, however, that these last seem often too stiff and as if made of metal rather than of silk, satin, or cloth. And when Howard told us that Mr. Ruskin says 'they hang from the figures as they would from clothes-pegs,' we could but laugh, and think he is right with regard to some of them. Ought we to admire everything in these old pictures, Mr. Sumner?" she earnestly added.
"Not at all; not by any means. I would not have you think this for a moment. Ghirlandajo's paintings are famous and worthy because they are such an advance on what was before him. Compare his men and women with those by Giotto. You know how much you found of interest and to admire in Giotto's pictures when you compared them with Cimabue's and with the old Greek Byzantine paintings. Just so compare those by Masaccio and Ghirlandajo with what was done before. See the growth,—the steady evolution,—and realize that Ghirlandajo was honest and earnest, and gifted too; that his drawing is firm and truer to nature than that of most contemporary artists; that his portraits possess character; that they are well-bred and important, as the people they represent were; that his mountains are like mountains even in some of their subtile lines; that his rivers wind; that his masses of architecture are in good perspective and proportion; and then you will excuse his faults, though it is right to notice and feel them. We must see many in the work of every artist until we come to the great painters of the High Renaissance. You must find Ghirlandajo's other pictures, and study them also."
"Now about Botticelli," he added. A little rustle of expectancy swept through the group of listeners. Bettina drew nearer Barbara and clasped her hand; and all settled themselves anew with an especial air of interest. "I see you, like most other people, care more for him. He is immensely popular at present. It is quite the fashion to admire him. But, strangely enough, only a few years ago little was known or cared about his work, and his name is not even mentioned by some writers on art. He was first a goldsmith like Ghirlandajo, then afterward became a pupil of Fra Filippo Lippi, father of the Filippino Lippi who finished Masaccio's frescoes in the Brancacci Chapel. Botticelli wrought an immense service to painting by widening greatly the field of subjects hitherto assigned to it, which had been confined to Bible incidents. Others, contemporary with him, were beginning to depart slightly from these subjects in response to the desires of the pleasure-loving Florentines of that day; but Botticelli was the first to come deliberately forth and make art minister to the pleasure and education of the secular as well as the religious world. By nature he loved myths, fables, and allegories, and freely introduced them into his pictures. He painted Venuses, Cupids, and nymphs just as willingly as Madonnas and saints.
"I hope you will read diligently about him. The story of how his pictures, and those of other artists who were influenced by him, led to the protest which Savonarola (who lived at the same time) made against the 'corrupting influence of profane pictures' and his demand that bonfires should be made of them is most interesting. Botticelli devotedly contributed a large number of his paintings to the burning piles."
"But he painted religious pictures also, did he not?" queried Barbara.
"Oh, yes. His works were wrought in churches as well as in private houses and palaces. He even received the honor of being summoned to Rome by Pope Sixtus IV. to assist in the decoration of the Sistine Chapel of the Vatican, where Michael Angelo afterward performed his greatest work. There he painted three large religious frescoes—by the way, Ghirlandajo painted there also. Now we must find what is the charm in Botticelli's painting that accounts for the wonderful present interest in his work. I think it is in a large degree his attempt to put expression into faces. While Masaccio had taken a long step in advance of other artists by making man himself, rather than events, the chief interest in his pictures,—Botticelli, more imaginative and poetic, painted man's moods,—his subtile feelings. You are all somewhat familiar, through their reproductions, with his Madonna pictures. How do these differ from those of other painters?"
"The faces are less pretty."
"They are sad instead of joyous."