RESTORATION OP THE ART OP SCULPTURE. 569 



them the ftifF painting of Cimabue and Giotto, yet 

 celebrate thefe to the ftars. How could they do this 

 without being blinded by an univerfal prejudice ? 



It is highly probable, that, at the time of which we 

 are fpeaking, fculpture and painting were held to be 

 arts fo very different, and this prejudice was fo com- 

 mon and fo deeply rooted, that it never once occurred 

 to the great men of that period, to compare their pro- 

 grefs and their ftate of perfection together. The prime 

 excellence of painting was made to confift in a bril- 

 liant mixture of colours, in conjunction with fo much 

 drawing as was fufficient for diftinguiming a devil from 

 an angel. The fubjects were either the image of 

 fome faint, or figures from the fcripture-hiftory, with 

 the characteriftics and deflgns which the grecian pain* 

 ters, from the time of Conftantine, had annexed to 

 them. As thefe characteriftics were familiar to tha 

 very , loweft of the vulgar, the painter had done his 

 bulinefs when he had filled up the outlines of the 

 figures, and their principal members, with mining co- 

 lours. All that Cimabue, Giotto, and their contem- 

 poraries, contributed to the completion of the art, 

 amounted to no more than the correcting of fome 

 fenfelefs errors that had been fanctified by cuftorn. 

 For inftance, that the outline was no longer drawn with 

 black or golden lines, but with colours as the nature of 

 the fubject required ; that the figures no longer flood 

 on tiptoe, the fingers not always flinty extended, and 

 the like. For the reft, the figures which they painted 

 on a golden ground frill remained, more or lefs, in the 

 fame ftiff attitude. They, like their predeceffors, per- 

 petually worked for the eye of -the populace, and 



fliewedj 



