PROFESSIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 703* 



painters of Mount Athos, who manufacture pictures to pattern 

 with " almost the rapidity of machinery." M. Didron wished to 

 have a copy of the code of instructions "drawn up under eccle- 

 siastical authority," but " the artist, when solicited by M. Didron 

 to sell 'cette bible de son art/ naively refused, on the simple 

 ground that ' en perdant son Guide, il perdait son art ; il perdait 

 ses yeux et ses mains/ " 



Concerning later stages in the rise of the lay painter, it must 

 suffice to say that from the time of Cimabue, who began to depart 

 from the rigidly formal style of the priestly Byzantine artists, the 

 lay element predominated. Amid a number of apparently non- 

 clerical painters, only a few clerics are named ; as Don Lorenzo, 

 Fra Giovanni, Fra Philippo Lippi, Fra Bartolommeo. But mean- 

 while it is to be observed that these secular painters, probably at 

 first, like the secular sculptors, assistants to the priests in their 

 work, were occupied mainly and often exclusively with sacred 

 subjects. 



Along with this differentiation of the lay painter from the cler- 

 ical painter there began a differentiation of lay painters from one 

 another; and the facts show us a gradual beginning where 

 imagination would have suggested only an abrupt beginning. As 

 I learn from an academician, the first form of portrait (omit- 

 ting some painted under a surviving classic influence in those 

 earliest days before art was extinguished by the barbarians) was 

 that of the donor of a sacred picture to a church or other eccle- 

 siastical edifice, who was allowed to have himself represented 

 in a corner of the picture on his knees with hands joined in sup- 

 plication. 



Something similar happened with another form of art. Land- 

 scapes made their first appearance as small and modest back- 

 grounds to representations of sacred personages and incidents 

 backgrounds the composition of which displays an artificiality 

 congruous with that of the figure-composition. In course of time 

 this background assumed a greater importance, but still it long 

 remained quite subordinate. After it had ceased to be a mere 

 accompaniment, landscape-painting in its secularized form was but 

 partially emancipated from figure-painting. When it grew into a 

 recognized branch of art, the title " Landscape with figures," was 

 still generally applicable ; and down to our own day it has been 

 thought needful to put in some living creatures. Only of late has 

 landscape pure and simple, absolutely divorced from human life, 

 become common. 



Of course various classes and sub-classes of artists, broadly 

 if not definitely marked off, are implied by these and other 

 specialized kinds of paintings : some determined by the natures 



