RELATION OF ENGRAVING TO OTHER ARTS. 269 



its relation to other arts, the subordinate surface of this lin- 

 ear work, in sculpture, in metal work, and in painting ; or in 

 the representation and repetition of painting. 



And first, therefore, I have to map out the broad relations 

 of the arts of sculpture, metal work, and painting, in Florence, 

 among themselves, during the period in which the art of en- 

 graving was distinctly connected with them.* 



40. You will find, or may remember, that in my lecture on 

 Michael Angelo and Tintoret I indicated the singular impor- 

 tance, in the history of art, of a space of forty years, between 

 1480, and the year in which Raphael died, 1520. Within that 

 space of time the change was completed, from the principles 

 of ancient, to those of existing, art ; a manifold change, not 

 definable in brief terms, but most clearly characterized, and 

 easily remembered, as the change of conscientious and didactic 

 art, into that which proposes to itself no duty beyond techni- 

 cal skill, and no object but the pleasure of the beholder. Of 

 that momentous change itself I do not purpose to speak in the 

 present course of lectures ; but my endeavour will be to lay 

 before you a rough chart of the course of the arts in Florence 

 up to the time when it took place ; a chart indicating for you, 

 definitely, the growth of conscience, in work which is distinct- 

 ively conscientious, and the perfecting of expression and 

 means of popular address, in that which is distinctively di- 

 dactic. 



41. Means of popular address, observe, which have become 

 singularly important to us at this day. Nevertheless, remem- 

 ber that the power of printing, or reprinting, black pictures, 

 practically contemporary with that of reprinting black letters, 

 modified the art of the draughtsman only as it modified that 

 of the scribe. Beautiful and unique writing, as beautiful and 

 unique painting or engraving, remain exactly what they were ; 

 but other useful and reproductive methods of both have been 

 superadded. Of these, it is acutely said by Dr. Alfred Wolt- 

 mann,f 



* Compare Aratra Pentelici, 154. 



f " Holbein and His Time," 4to, Bentley, 1872, (a very valuable book,) 

 p. 17. Italics mine. 



