The Book of Art for Young People | Page 8

a far more serious matter. Then, as it pleased God, there was born in the year 1240, in the city of Florence, Giovanni, surnamed Cimabue, to shed the first light on the art of painting. Instead of paying attention to his lessons, Cimabue spent the whole day drawing men, horses, houses, and various other fancies on his books and odd sheets, like one who felt himself compelled to do so by nature. Fortune proved favourable to his natural inclination, for some Greek artists were summoned to Florence by the government of the city for no other purpose than the revival of painting in their midst, since the art was not so much debased as altogether lost. In this way Cimabue made a beginning in the art which attracted him, for he often played the truant and spent the whole day in watching the masters work. Thus it came about that his father and the artists considered him so fitted to be a painter that if he devoted himself to the profession he might look for honourable success in it, and to his great satisfaction his father procured him employment with the painters. Thus by dint of continual practice and with the assistance of his natural talent he far surpassed the manner of his teachers. For they had never cared to make any progress and had executed their works, not in the good manner of ancient Greece, but in the rude modern style of that time. Cimabue drew from nature to the best of his powers, although it was a novelty to do so in those days, and he made the draperies, garments, and other things somewhat more life-like, natural, and soft than the Greeks had done, who had taught one another a rough, awkward, and commonplace style for a great number of years, not by means of study but as a matter of custom, without ever dreaming of improving their designs by beauty of colouring or by any invention of worth.
If you were to see a picture by Cimabue (there is one in the National Gallery which resembles his work so closely that it is sometimes said to be his), you would think less highly than Vasari of the life-like quality of his art, though there is something dignified and stately in the picture of the Virgin and Child with angels that he painted for the Church of St. Francis at Assisi. Another story is told by Vasari of a picture by Cimabue, which tradition asserts to be the great Madonna, still in the Church of Santa Maria Novella at Florence.
Cimabue painted a picture of Our Lady for the church of Santa Maria Novella. The figure was of a larger size than any which had been executed up to that time, and the people of that day who had never seen anything better, considered the work so marvellous that they carried it to the church from Cimabue's house in a stately procession with great rejoicing and blowing of trumpets, while Cimabue himself was highly rewarded and honoured. It is reported, and some records of the old painters relate, that while Cimabue was painting this picture in some gardens near the gate of S. Piero, the old King Charles of Anjou passed through Florence. Among the many entertainments prepared for him by the men of the city, they brought him to see the picture of Cimabue. As it had not then been seen by any one, all the men and women of Florence flocked thither in a crowd with the greatest rejoicings, so that those who lived in the neighbourhood called the place the 'Joyful Suburb' because of the rejoicing there. This name it ever afterwards retained, being in the course of time enclosed within the walls of the city.
For this story we may thank Vasari, because it helps us to realize the love the people of Florence felt for the pictures in their churches, and the reverence in which they held an artist who could paint a more beautiful picture of the Virgin and Child than any they had seen before. It is difficult to think of the population of a town to-day walking in procession to honour the painter of a fine picture; but a picture of the Madonna was a very precious thing indeed to a Florentine of the thirteenth century, and we may try to imagine ourselves walking joyfully in that Florentine procession so as the better to understand Florentine Art.
I have repeated this legend about Cimabue, because he was the master of Giotto, who is called the Father of Modern Painting. The story is that Cimabue one day came upon the boy Giotto, who was a shepherd, and found him drawing a sheep with a pointed piece of stone upon a smooth surface of rock. He