246 SKETCHES OF THE OLD MASTERS. 



lie was noticed sketching one of his flock on a stone. His genius 

 was appreciated, and kind patrons gave him instruction in all that 

 was then known of art. It was not long before he led all his 

 instructors. These were the times when they made those rigid 

 expressionless Christs and Virgins and Saints, with their heads 

 surrounded by hoops, arid painted on wood, usually the inside of 

 case doors, which priests threw open on occasions of great devo- 

 tional exercises. Giotto made the first faces that had life in them 

 the first Christ on the cross that looked at all like a suffering 

 Saviour. He lived in the time of the poet Dante, and was his 

 friend and companion. Each one has in his own way made the 

 portrait of the other ; and both pictures are of the kind that are 

 immortal. When he died in Florence, in 1336, and was buried 

 with great pomp in the Cathedral, it was recognized that the poor 

 shepherd boy had become a power and a leader among men. He 

 was without question the father of painting and of the mosaic 

 art. Some of the oldest frescoes in the Cainpo Santo of Pisa 

 are by his hand. The mosaic of the Disciples in the storm, 

 called " Navicella," in the portico of St. Peter's, is his. His 

 works were very numerous and his pupils were very many ; so 

 that his influence was carried down for many generations. But 

 the next great advance in painting was made more than a hun- 

 dred years later and in the time of 



Leonardo da Vinci ( Vin-che). He was born at the castle 

 of the Yinci, near Florence, in 1452 ; was the natural son of 

 Pietro da Yinci, but brought up with all the advantages of wealth 

 and of the best instruction. He had a wonderful and versatile 

 genius was a poet, musician, mathematician, mechanic, sculptor 

 and painter. As an artist, he introduced the element of the 

 ideal into painting. Grandeur of design, harmony of expression, 

 united with the minutest finish the poetry of the art may be 

 said to have originated with Leonardo. He is best known by his 

 fresco paintings ; and the best of these is " The Last Supper," 

 in the convent of Maria delle Grazie, in Milan. This lias long 

 been in a bad state of preservation from the fact that the artist 

 was experimenting in the use of oil paints instead of the usual 

 water colors for wall paintings. Leonardo, although brilliant and 



