[22] Cf. H. Thode: “Franz von Assisi.”
[23] Dr. J. P. Richter: “Lectures on the National Gallery.”
[24] One picture, however, ascribed by Vasari to Cimabue, namely, the Madonna of the National Gallery, does not bear the characteristics of this group. Dr. Richter’s argument for giving the Rucellai painting to Duccio depends largely on the likeness of this to the Maesta, but there is no reason to cling so closely to Vasari’s attributions. If we except the National Gallery Madonna, which shows the characteristics of the Siennese school, these pictures, including the Rucellai Madonna, will be found to cohere by many common peculiarities not shared by Duccio. Among these we may notice the following: The eye has the upper eyelid strongly marked; it has a peculiar languishing expression, due in part to the large elliptical iris (Duccio’s eyes have a small, bright, round iris with a keen expression); the nose is distinctly articulated into three segments; the mouth is generally slewed round from the perpendicular; the hands are curiously curved, and in all the Madonnas clutch the supports of the throne; the hair bows seen upon the halos have a constant and quite peculiar shape; the drapery is designed in rectilinear triangular folds, very different from Duccio’s more sinuous and flowing line. The folds of the drapery where they come to the contour of the figure have no effect upon the form of the outline, an error which Duccio never makes. Finally, the thrones in all these pictures have a constant form; they are made of turned wood with a high footstool, and are seen from the side; Duccio’s is of stone and seen from the front. That the Rucellai Madonna has a morbidezza which is wanting in the earlier works can hardly be considered a sufficient distinction to set against the formal characteristics. It is clearly a later work, painted probably about the year 1300, and Cimabue, like all the other artists of the time, was striving constantly in the direction of greater fusion of tones.
[25] I should speak now both with greater confidence and much greater enthusiasm of Cimabue. The attempt of certain scholars to dispose of him as a myth has broken down. The late Mr. H. P. Horne found that the documents cited by Dr. Richter to prove that Duccio executed the Rucellai Madonna referred to another picture. I had also failed in my estimate to consider fully the superb crucifix by Cimabue in the Museum of Sta. Croce, a work of supreme artistic merit. In general my defence of Cimabue, though right enough as far as it goes, appears to me too timid and my estimate of his artistic quality far too low (1920).
[26] The important position here assigned to the Roman school has been confirmed by the subsequent discovery of Cavallini’s frescoes in Sta. Cecilia at Rome (1920).
[27] “Drunken with the love of compassion of Christ, the blessed Francis would at times do such-like things as this; for the passing sweet melody of the spirit within him, seething over outwardly, did often find utterance in the French tongue, and the strain of the divine whisper that his ear had caught would break forth into a French song of joyous exulting.” Then pretending with two sticks to play a viol, “and making befitting gestures, (he) would sing in French of our Lord Jesus Christ.”—“The Mirror of Perfection,” edited by P. Sabatier, transl. by S. Evans.
[28] “Florentine Painters of the Renaissance and Central Italian Painters of the Renaissance,” by B. Berenson.
[29] This was the first “representation” of the kind in Italy, and is of interest as being the beginning of the Italian Drama, and also of that infinite series of allegorical pageants, sometimes sacred, sometimes secular, which for three centuries played such a prominent part in city life and affected Italian art very intimately.
[30] The Master of the Cecilia altar-piece has been the object of much research since this article was written, and a considerable number of important works are now ascribed to him with some confidence. He has been tentatively identified with Buffalonaceo by Dr. Siren. See Burl. Mag., December, 1919; January, October, 1920.
[31] This quality is to be distinguished from that conscious naturalistic study of atmospheric envelopment which engrossed the attention of some artists of the cinquecento; it is a decorative quality which may occur at any period in the development of painting if only an artist arises gifted with a sufficiently delicate sensitiveness to the surface-quality of his work.