CHAPTER III

VASARI ON MASACCIO

Vasari’s general estimate of Masaccio’s importance is still sound.

“With regard to the good manner of painting, we are indebted above all to Masaccio, seeing that he, as one desirous of acquiring fame, perceived that painting is nothing but the counterfeiting of all the things of nature, vividly and simply, with drawing and with colours, even as she produced them for us.... This truth, I say, being recognized by Masaccio, brought it about that by means of continuous study he learned so much that he can be numbered among the first who cleared away, in a great measure, the hardness, the imperfections, and the difficulties of the art, and that he gave a beginning to beautiful attitudes, movements, liveliness, and vivacity, and to a certain relief truly characteristic and natural; which no painter up to his time had done.... And he painted his works with good unity and softness, harmonizing the flesh-colours of the heads and of the nudes with the colours of the draperies, which he delighted to make with few folds and simple, as they are in life and nature....

“For this reason that chapel has been frequented continually up to our own day [1554] by innumerable draughtsmen and masters; and there still are therein some heads so life-like and so beautiful, that it may truly be said that no master of that age approached so nearly as this man did to the moderns. His labours, therefore, deserve infinite praise, and above all because he gave form in his art to the beautiful manner of the times.”

Vasari then names twenty-five artists who studied Masaccio’s frescoes. From De Vere’s translation of the _Lives_, Vol. II, p. 189, 90.

LEONARDO DA VINCI ON MASACCIO

Leonardo da Vinci uses Masaccio as the example of a painter who goes to nature rather than to other men’s painting.

=That Painting declines and deteriorates from age to age, when painters have no standard but painting already done.=

“Hence the painter will produce pictures of small merit if he takes for his standard the pictures of others. But if he will study from natural objects he will bear good fruit; as was seen in the painters after the Romans who always imitated each other, and so their art declined from age to age. After these came Giotto the Florentine who—not content with imitating the works of Cimabue; his master—being born in the mountains and in a solitude inhabited only by goats and such beasts, and being guided by nature to his art, began by drawing on the rocks the movements of the goats of which he was keeper. And thus he began to draw all the animals which were to be found in the country, and in such wise that after much study he excelled not only all the masters of his time but all those of many bygone ages.”

“Afterwards this art declined again, because everyone imitated the pictures that were already done; thus it went on from century to century until Tomaso, of Florence, nicknamed Masaccio, showed by his perfect works how those who take for their standard any one but nature—the mistress of all masters—weary themselves in vain.”

J. P. Richter “_Literary Works of L. da V._,” Vol. I. p. 660.

But Leonardo approves also imitation of antiquity (Richter, Vol. II, ¶1445). “The imitation of antique things is better than that of modern things.” He would probably have sanctioned Masaccio’s devout study of Giotto. The warning is against slavish imitation of immediate predecessors.

VASARI ON PAOLO UCCELLO

The admirable and self sacrificing ardor of these first realists is best exemplified in the case of Paolo Uccello.

“For the sake of these investigations [in perspective] he kept himself in seclusion and almost a hermit, having little intercourse with anyone, and staying weeks and months in his house without shaving himself. And although those were difficult and beautiful problems, if he had spent that time in the study of figures, he would have brought them to absolute perfection; for even so he made them with passing good draughtsmanship. But, consuming his time in these researches, he remained throughout his whole life more poor than famous; wherefore the sculptor Donatello, who was very much his friend, said to him very often—when Paolo showed him Mazzocchi (facetted head-fillets) with pointed ornaments, and squares drawn in perspective from diverse aspects; spheres with seventy-two diamond-shaped facets, with wood-shavings wound round sticks on each facet; and other fantastic devices on which he spent and wasted his time—‘Ah, Paolo, this perspective of thine makes thee abandon the substance for the shadow; those are things that are only useful to men who work at the inlaying of wood, seeing that they fill their borders with chips and shavings, with spirals both round and square, and with other similar things.’”

Vasari, in Schele de Vere’s translation; Vol. II. p. 132, 3.

AN APPRAISAL OF BALDOVINETTI’S FRESCOES

Here I may illustrate a common practice of the times in an appraisal of Baldovinetti’s frescoes in the choir of the Trinità by fellow artists including Benozzo Gozzoli, Cosimo Rosselli and Pietro Perugino.

“In the name of God—on the 19 of January 1496 (n. s. ’97)

We Benozzo di Lese, painter; and Piero di Cristofano da Castel della Pieve, painter; and Cosimo di Lorenzo Rosselli, painter, chosen by Alesso di Baldovinetti, painter, to see and judge and set a price on—empowered by a contract which said Alesso has with M. Bongianni de’Gianfigliazzi and his heirs—a chapel pictured in Santa Trinità of Florence—that is the choir of the said church, having seen, all together and agreeing, having examined all the costs of lime, azure, gold and all other colours, scaffolds and everything else, including his work, we judge from all this that the aforesaid Alesso should have one thousand broad gold florins.

“And for clearness and truth of the said judgment I Cosimo di Lorenzo aforesaid have made this writing with my own hand this aforesaid day, and so I judge; and here at the foot they will sign with their own hands that they are agreed with what is above written, and so judge.

Benozzo di Lese &c.

I Piero Perugino &c.

Translated from Herbert Horne’s edition of Alesso’s _Ricordi_ in _Burlington Magazine_, Vol. II. (1903) p. 383.

[Illustration:

FIG. 101. Ghirlandaio. Giovanna degli Albizzi.—_J. P. Morgan Coll., New York._ ]

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