Photo. Alinari.
Plate 22.—St. John, from The Crucifixion.
Perugino, Church of Sta. Maria Maddalena de’ Pazzi
that time might execute their numerous commissions, when, as we see, masterpieces had to be destroyed to make room for still greater works. If we contrast those spacious days of art with those of our own time and in our own country, it affords us food for some reflection of a mournful kind to find there are acres of blank spaces on the walls of our churches and public buildings, and capable enough artists in our midst who might be employed to decorate these barren spaces, but nobody, or no Government, public-spirited enough to entrust modern artists with commissions to execute such works.
CHAPTER VIII
THE WORK OF PINTURICCHIO AND GHIRLANDAJO
Bernardino Pinturicchio of Perugia (1454-1513) was an excellent painter in fresco, although Vasari, in his Lives of the Painters, has done scant justice to his great merits. In the face of much splendid work that has been done by Pinturicchio, the want of appreciation of his merits by Vasari is quite inexplicable. Any one who has seen, and carefully examined his frescos in the Borgia apartments of the Vatican must acknowledge him as one of the greatest decorative artists of his time, greater, for example because less conventional, than Perugino, his contemporary, with whom he sometimes collaborated, and who often got credit for work which was done by Pinturicchio. To compare his work with that of Perugino we should say that in the design and colouring of the former artist there is more life, more spontaneity, and much less mannerism than is seen in the work of Perugino. In design his wall decorations are characterized by great variety and plenitude of incident, and although he may appear at times to aim at the expression of too