The followers of Giotto had now carried painting beyond the period of its infancy, but it continued to give proofs of its infant faculties, especially in chiaroscuro, and still more in perspective. Figures sometimes appeared as if falling or slipping from the canvass; buildings had not a true point of view; and the art of foreshortening was yet very rude. Stefano Fiorentino perceived rather than removed the difficulty; others for the most part sought either to avoid or to compensate for the deficiency. Pietro della Francesca, whom we have elsewhere noticed, appears to have been the first who revived the Grecian practice of rendering geometry subservient to the painter. He is celebrated by Pascoli,[68] and by authors of greater note, as the father of perspective. Brunelleschi was the first Florentine who saw the method of bringing it to perfection, "which consisted in drawing it in outline by the help of intersections;"[69] and in this manner he drew the square of St. John, and other places, with true diminution and with receding points. He was imitated in mosaic by Benedetto da Maiano, and in painting by Masaccio, to both of whom he was master. About the same period Paolo Uccello, having studied under Gio. Manetti, a celebrated mathematician, applied to it with assiduity; and even so dedicated himself to the pursuit, that in labouring to excel in this, he never acquired celebrity in the other branches of painting. He delighted in it far beyond his other studies, and used to say that perspective was the most pleasant of all; so true is it that novelty is a great source of enjoyment. He executed no work that did not reflect some new light on that art, whether it consisted of edifices and colonnades, in which a great space was represented in a small compass, or of figures foreshortened with a skill unknown to the followers of Giotto. Some of his historic pictures of Adam, and of Noah, in which he indulged in his favourite taste for the novel and whimsical, remain in the cloisters of S. Maria Novella; and there are also landscapes with trees and animals so well executed, that he might be called the Bassano of the first age. He particularly delighted to have birds in his house, from which he drew, and from thence he obtained his surname of Uccello. In the cathedral there is a gigantic portrait of Gio. Aguto on horseback, painted by Paolo in green earth. This was, perhaps, the first attempt made in painting, which achieved a great deal without appearing too daring. He produced other specimens at Padua, where he delineated some figures of giants with green earth in the house of the Vitali. He was chiefly employed in ornamenting furniture for private individuals; the triumphs of Petrarch in the royal gallery, painted on small cabinets are supposed by some good judges to be his.
Masolino da Panicale cultivated the art of chiaroscuro. I believe he derived advantage from having long dedicated his attention to modelling and sculpture, a practice which renders relief easy to the painter, beyond what is generally conceived. Ghiberti had been his master in this branch, who at this time was unrivalled in design, in composition, and in giving animation to his figures. Colouring, which he yet wanted, was taught him by Starnina, and in this also he became a very celebrated master. Thus uniting in himself the excellences of two schools, he produced a new style, not indeed exempt from dryness, nor wholly faultless; but grand, determined, and harmonious, beyond any former example. The chapel of St. Peter al Carmine, is a remaining monument of this artist. He there painted the Evangelists, and some acts of the Saint, as his vocation to the apostleship, the tempest, the denying of Christ, the miracle performed at Porta Speciosa, and the Preaching. He was prevented by death from representing other acts of St. Peter, as for instance, the tribute paid to Cæsar, baptism conferred on the multitude, the healing of the sick, which several years afterwards were painted by his scholar Maso di S. Giovanni, a youth who obtained the surname of Masaccio, from trusting to a precarious subsistence, and living, as it was said, by chance, while deeply engrossed with the studies of his profession. This artist was a genius calculated to mark an era in painting; and Mengs has assigned him the highest place among those who explored its untried recesses. Vasari informs us that "what was executed before his time might be called paintings, but that his pictures seem to live, they are so true and natural;" and in another place adds, that "no master of that age so nearly approached the moderns." He had formed the principles of his art on the works of Ghiberti and Donatello; perspective he acquired from Brunelleschi, and on going to Rome it cannot be doubted that he improved by the study of ancient sculpture. He there met with two senior artists, Gentile da Fabriano, and Vittore Pisanello, upon whom high encomiums, as the first painter of his time, may be seen in Maffei and elsewhere.[70] They who write thus had either not seen any of the paintings of Masaccio, or at most only his early productions; such as the S. Anna in the church of S. Ambrose in Florence, or the chapel of S. Catherine in S. Clement's at Rome, in which, while still young, he executed some pictures of the passion of Christ, and legends of S. Anna, to which may be added a ceiling containing the Evangelists, which are all that now remain free from retouching. This work is excellent for that time, but some doubt whether it ought to be ascribed to him; and it is inferior to his painting in the Carmine, of which we may say with Pliny, jam perfecta sunt omnia. The positions and foreshortenings of the figures are diversified and complete beyond those practised by Paolo Uccello. The air of the heads, says Mengs, is in the style of Raffaello; the expression is so managed that the mind seems no less forcibly depicted than the body. The anatomy of the figure is marked with truth and judgment. That figure, so highly extolled in the baptism of S. Peter, which appears shivering with cold, marks, as it were, an era in the art. The garments, divested of minuteness, present a few easy folds. The colouring is true, properly varied, delicate, and surprisingly harmonious; the relief is in the grandest style. This chapel was not finished by him. He died in 1443, not without suspicion of poison, and left it still deficient in several pictures, which, after many years were supplied by the younger Lippi. It became the school of all the best Florentine artists whom we shall have occasion to notice in this and the succeeding epoch, of Pietro Perugino, and even of Raffaello; and it is a curious circumstance, that in the course of many years, in a city fruitful in genius, ever bent on the promotion of the art, no one in following the footsteps of Masaccio attained that eminence which he acquired without a director. Time has defaced other works of his hand at Florence, equally commended, and especially the sanctuary of the church del Carmine, of which there is a drawing in the possession of the learned P. Lettor Fontana Barnabita in Pavia. The royal gallery has very few of his works. The portrait of a young man, that seems to breathe, and is estimated at a high price, is in the Pitti collection.
After Masaccio, two monks distinguished themselves in the Florentine school. The first was a Dominican friar named F. Giovanni da Fiesole, or B. Giovanni Angelico. His first employment was that of ornamenting books with miniatures, an art he learned from an elder brother, who executed miniatures and other paintings. It is said that he studied in the chapel of Masaccio, but it is not easy to credit this when we consider their ages. Their style too betrays a different origin. The works of the friar discover some traces of the manner of Giotto, in the posture of the figures and the compensation for deficiencies in the art, not to mention the drapery which is often folded in long tube-like forms, and the exquisite diligence in minute particulars common to miniature painters. Nor did he depart much from this method in the greatest part of his works, which chiefly consist of scripture pieces of our Saviour, or the Virgin, in cabinet pictures not unfrequently to be met with in Florence. The royal gallery possesses several; the most brilliant and highly finished of which, is the birth of John the Baptist. The Glory,[71] which is in the church of S. Mary Magdalen de' Pazzi, from its great size, is among his rarest productions; and it also ranks with the most beautiful. His chief excellence consists in the beauty that adorns the countenances of his saints and angels; and he is truly the Guido of the age, for the sweetness of his colours, which, though in water, he diluted and blended in a manner which almost reaches perfection. He was also esteemed one of the best of his age in works executed in fresco; and he was employed in the decoration of the cathedral of Orvieto, as well as the palace of the Vatican itself, where he painted a chapel—a work much commended by a number of writers. Vasari enumerates Gentile da Fabriano among his disciples, but the dates render this impossible; and says the same of Zanobi Strozzi, a man of noble origin, of whom I do not know that any certain picture exists in a public collection: I only know that, treading in the steps of his master, he surpassed the reputation of a mere amateur. Benozzo Gozzoli, another of his disciples, and an imitator of Masaccio, raised himself far above the majority of his contemporaries.
In a few points he even surpassed his model, as in the stupendous size of his edifices, in the amenity of his landscapes, and in the brilliancy of his fancy, truly lively, agreeable, and picturesque. In the Riccardi palace, once a royal residence, there is a chapel in good preservation, where he executed a Glory, a Nativity, and an Epiphany. He there painted with a profusion of gold and of drapery, unexampled, perhaps, in fresco; and with an adherence to nature that exhibits an image of that age in the portraits, the garments, the accoutrements of the horses, and in the most minute particulars. He long resided at Pisa, and died there, where he ought to be studied; for his compositions in that place are better than those at Florence, and he was there also more sparing in the use of gold. The portrait of S. Thomas Aquinas is highly spoken of by Vasari and Richardson; but they especially notice the pictures from scripture history, with which he ornamented a whole wing of the Campo Santo, "a most prodigious work, sufficient to appal a legion of painters;"[72] and he finished it within two years. Here he displayed a talent for composition, an imitation of nature, a variety in the countenances and attitudes, a colouring juicy, lively, and clear, and an expression of the passions that places him next to Masaccio. I can scarcely believe that he painted the whole. In the Ebriety of Noah, in the Tower of Babel, and in some other pictures, we discern an attempt at surprising, not to be seen in some others, where figures sometimes occur that seem dry and laboured; defects which I am disposed rather to attribute to his coadjutors. Near this great work a monument is erected to his memory by a grateful city, in the public name, with an epitaph that commends him as a painter. Time itself, as if conscious of his merit, has respected this work beyond any other in the Campo Santo.
The other monk was Filippo Lippi, a Carmelite, a genius of a different stamp from B. Giovanni. He received his instruction, not from Masaccio, as Vasari would have it, but from his works. His assiduity in copying him, makes him sometimes appear a second Masaccio, especially in small histories. Some of his choicest are in the sacristy of the church of S. Spirito. In that place, in the Church of S. Ambrose, and elsewhere, his pictures represent the Virgin surrounded by angels, with full and handsome countenances, distinguished by a colouring and a gracefulness peculiarly his own. He delighted in drapery like the neat folds of a surplice; his tints were very clear but delicate, and often subdued by a purple hue not common to other painters. He introduced gigantic proportions in his large frescos in the parish church of Prato; where his pictures of S. Stephen and the Baptist were, in the opinion of Vasari, his capital performances. His forsaking the convent, his slavery in Barbary, his works at Naples, at Padua, and elsewhere, his death, hastened by poison, administered by the relations of a young lady who had borne him a natural child, likewise named Filippo Lippi, are recorded by Vasari. P. della Valle is of opinion that he never professed any order, but in the register of Carmine, his death is noticed in the year 1469, and he is there denominated Fra Filippo. He died at Spoleti when he had nearly completed his large picture for the cathedral. Lorenzo the Magnificent requested his ashes from the townsmen, but was refused; on which he caused a handsome monument to be erected for him, with an inscription by Angelo Poliziano; a circumstance I mention, to demonstrate the respect paid to the art at that period. F. Diamante da Prato, the scholar of Lippi, and his assistant in his last work, imitated him well; as likewise did Francesco Pesello, a Florentine of the same school; his son Pesellino, a short lived artist, followed him with still greater success. The Epiphany of Francesco, described by Vasari, in which there is a portrait of Donato Acciaiuoli, is in the royal gallery. The grado, painted by his son for the apartments of the novices of S. Croce, is there still: on this last are the histories of S. Cosma and S. Damian, of S. Anthony, and S. Francis, denominated by the historian most wonderful productions, and, perhaps, this is not too much to say when we recollect the period.
About this time other able artists flourished at Florence, who were obscured by greater names. Of this number was Berto Linaiuolo, whose pictures in private houses were, for a long time, held in great repute. They were even ordered by the King of Hungary, and procured him great fame in that kingdom. Alessio Baldovinetti, of noble extraction, was a painter particularly diligent and minute, a good worker in mosaic, and the master of Ghirlandaio. In his picture of the Nativity in the porch of the Nunziata, and in his other works, the design, rather than the colouring, may now be said to remain; for the tints have vanished, from a defect in their composition. To them we may add Verrocchio, a celebrated statuary, a good designer, and a painter for amusement rather than by profession. While he painted the Baptism of Christ at S. Salvi, his scholar, L. da Vinci, then a youth, finished an angel, in a manner superior to the figures of his master, who, indignant at his own inferiority to a boy, never more handled the pencil.
Baldinucci imagines that Andrea del Castagno, a name infamous in history, was a scholar of Masaccio: he was rather his imitator, in attitude, relief, and casting of the drapery, than in grace and colouring. He lived at the time that the secret of painting in oil (discovered by John Van Eych, or John of Bruges, about 1410),[73] was known in Italy, not only by report, but by experience of the advantages of this method. Our artists, admiring the harmony, delicacy, and brilliance, which colours received from this discovery, sighed to possess the secret. For this purpose, one Antonello da Messina, who had studied at Rome, travelled to Flanders, and having learned the secret, according to Vasari, from the inventor, went to Venice, where he communicated it to a friend named Domenico. After having practised much in his own country, at Loreto,[74] and other parts of the ecclesiastical states, Domenico came to Florence. There he became the general favourite, and on that account was envied by Castagna, whose dissembled friendship won him to impart the secret, and rewarded him by an atrocious assassination, which he perpetrated, in order that there might be none living to rival him in the art. The assassin was sufficiently skilful to conceal his crime, owing to which a number of innocent persons soon fell under suspicion, which did not induce the real criminal to avow the atrocious deed, until he lay upon his death-bed, when he disclosed his guilt and did justice to the innocence of others. He had the reputation of being the first artist of his time, for vigour, for design, and for perspective, having perfected the art of foreshortening. His finest works have perished: one of his pictures remains at S. Lucia de' Magnuoli, and also some of his historic pieces, executed with great diligence. There is also a Crucifixion, painted on a wall in the monastery of the Angeli.
Many writers have appeared who deny the abovementioned statement of Vasari, and maintain that the art of painting in oil was known long before. It is pretended that it existed in the time of the Romans, an opinion that is adopted by Sig. Ranza, in regard to a picture said to be of S. Helena, consisting of a quilting of different pieces of silk stitched together, exhibiting a picture of the Virgin Saint with the Infant. The heads and hands are coloured in oils; the drapery is shaded with the needle, and in a great measure with the pencil. It is preserved in Vercelli, and from the tradition of its citizens reported by Mabillon (Diar. Ital. Cap. 28), it is said to be the work of S. Helena, mother of Constantine; that is, the patches of silk were sewed by her, and the gilding and painting added to it by her painter, as is conjectured by Ranza. He was not aware that the practice of drawing the Infant Christ in the lap of the Virgin (as we notice in the preface to the Roman school), was posterior to the fourth century; and that other particulars related by him of the picture cannot belong to the age of Constantine; for instance, the hooded mantle of our Lady. From such signs we ought rather to conclude that it is either not an oil painting, or that the figure, at whatever period executed, has been retouched in the same way as that of the Nunziata at Florence, or of the Santa Maria Primerana at Fiesole; the former of which in the drapery, and the latter in the lineaments, are not the same now as in their ancient state.
Others, without ascending to the first ages of the church, have asserted that oil painting was known out of Italy, at least as early as the eleventh century. As a proof of this, they adduce a manuscript of the Monk Teofilo or Ruggiero, no later back than that period, which bears title, "De omni scientiâ artis pingendi," where there is a receipt for the preparation and use of oil from flax.[75] Lessing gave an account of this manuscript in the year 1774, in a treatise published at Brunswick, where he filled the office of librarian to the Prince. Morelli, also, in the Codici Naniani (cod. 39); and more at length Raspe, in his critical "Dissertation on Oil Painting," published in the English language at London, in which he enumerated the existing copies in various libraries, and gave a great part of the manuscript, entered into an examination of the subject. Lastly, Teofilo's treatise is inserted by Christiano Leist, in Lessing's collection, "Zur Geschichte unde Litteratur." Brusw. 1781. The Dottore Aglietti, in his Giornale Veneto, December, 1793, likewise adds his opinion; while the learned Abbate Morelli, in his "Notizia," which is often cited by me in the emendation and illustration of this edition, throws the greatest light upon the present question, agitated by so many, and, we may add, "rem acu tetigit." He, then, will be found to concede to Giovanni, whom he calls Gianes da Brugia, the boast of this great discovery, agreeing with Vasari, though in a different sense from that in which the latter writer views it. For he does not reply to his opponents, that the art of painting, as taught by Teofilo, might have gone into disuse, and was only revived by Giovanni; whence Vasari ventured to commend him as an original inventor; in the same manner as Tiraboschi replied, who followed the Roman anthologists (St. Lett. t. vi. p. 1202). Neither does he bring forward the defence advanced by the Baron de Budberg in the apology of Gio. da Bruges,[76] to the purport that Teofilo taught the art of painting in oil, only upon a ground, without figures, and without ornaments: because Teofilo, in chap. 22, whose words we have given in the note, likewise taught this art. Into what, then, does the long-boasted invention of Giovanni resolve itself? Nothing more than this: according to the ancient practice, a fresh colour was never added to the panel until the first covering had been dried in the sun: a mode, as Teofilo confesses, infinitely tedious: "quod in imaginibus diuturnum et tædiosum nimis est;" (cap. 23); to which I may add, that the colours in this way could never perfectly harmonize. Van Eych saw this difficulty, and he became more truly sensible of it, from the circumstance of having exposed one of his paintings to the sun, in order to harden, when the excess of heat split the panel. Being at that period sufficiently skilled both in philosophical and philological inquiries, he began to speculate on the manner of applying oils, and of their acquiring a proper consistency without the aid of the sun. "By uniting it with other mixtures he next produced a varnish, which, dried, was water proof, and gave a clearness and brilliancy, while it added to the harmony of his colours." Such are the words of Vasari; and thus, in a very few words, we may arrive at a satisfactory solution of the question. Before the time of Van Eych, some sort of method of painting in oil was known, but so extremely tedious and imperfect, as to be scarcely applicable to the production of figure pieces. It was practised beyond the Alps, but is not known to have been in use in Italy. Giovanni carried the first discovery to its completion; he perfected the art, which was afterwards diffused over all Europe, and introduced into Italy, by means of Antonio, or Antonello da Messina.
Here again we are met by another class of objectors, who enter the lists against Van Eych, against Antonello, and more decidedly against Vasari, not with arguments from books, but in the strength of pictorial skill, and chemical experiments.