Dissertation on the Paintings of the middle Age. 43 



endeavour to restore to it the perfection of which it had 

 been so lon^ deprived? and were these ftew artists sufficiently 

 eulichtened to recosnise the indestructible solidity of the 

 fouiidations of the an among the ancitnts, thinking that 

 they could build only upon such bases, and forsaking their 

 new ideas and deceitful independence ? Who can aiiswer 

 all these questions ? Such observers and artists alone as are 

 destitute of prejudices : those only clearly perceive the 

 barrier which insulated the arts of Florence trom antiquity. 

 All the genius, all the merits of the Bandinelli, &c. &c. 

 are within this barrier. It is true that the art was partially 

 revived ; but it was no longer that of antiquity ; /. e. it 

 was no longer directed, guided, and characterized by those 

 documents which are adapted to it at all times and seasons. 

 In pictures, the drawing department gained in perspective 

 correctness, and lost in naivete: it gained in intrepidity 

 and energy, and lost in truth and proportion. Anatomy 

 became a study of ostentation : the magnificence of form 

 was factitious ; the artist appeared greater than the work, 

 and celebrity was confounded with perfection. The com- 

 position was abandoned to the caprice of the artist, and 

 was only kept within bounds, when the recollections of the 

 order aiid symmetry of the ancients occurred by chance to 

 determine their wavering resolutions. The essential cha- 

 racters of nature being once misunderstood, those of art 

 were abandoned, and became a subject of disputation in 

 the schools. The artists, freed from the yoke of ancient 

 doctrines, prolontred for some time their doubts as to the 

 essentials of painting and sculpture; and at length they at- 

 tained that which was inevitable, i. e. the celebrity of the 

 most eminent dragged the rest along with them. It was , 

 no longer the science of Phidias, Praxiteles, Protogenes, 

 which was to be recovered : the fiery and imposing sketches 

 of Michael Angelo were alone to be imitated: it was no 

 longer from nature that ideas were to be drawn and re- 

 newed, but rather from the academies already famous, pro- 

 tected by princes, and become the glory of the country and 

 of all Italy. The modesty of a small number of philoso- 

 phical artists, and their praiseworthy attempts, scorned all 

 exasgeraiions ; but their pictures were nevertheless praised, 

 because nature was exhibited in them : but vanity con- 

 tinuing- its proirress, all succeeding men of genius, one after 

 another, worshipped the mysteries of these new schools of 

 superstition. The efl'orts made to shake off this propen- 

 sity for the natural tastes of each, absorbed the faculties, 

 and there remained no Ioniser any moral method by which 



to 



