SfO UBS TOR. ATI ON OP THE ART OF SCULPTURE. 



ihewed, as they had done before, that they were to- 

 tally ignorant both of the juft notion and the true aim 

 ef painting. 



Even to the times of Mafaccio, who lived almoft 

 two hundred years after Nicholas of Pi fa, either it did 

 not pleafe them, or they thought it unneceffa*y to im- 

 prove the art by the imitation of the antiques. Even 

 down to that period, there is no picture to be produced 

 .which difcovers any traces of it. Vafari relates of 

 Mafaccio, that he was the firft who undertook to paint 

 after nature, and to imitate the be£ performances in 

 the art of fculpture. To this end, he not only made 

 life of the works of Brunellefchi and Donatello at Flo- 

 rence, but took a journey to Rome for the fake of 

 ftudying the antiques, that he might excel all his pre- 

 dece/Tors and his contemporaries in the art he profeffed. 

 Accordingly, it was much above a thoufand years that 

 the art of painting had fallen into a total decay, before 

 it once came into the mind of a painter to improve his 

 art by the imitation of nature and the fhidy of the an- 

 tiques. A remarkable inrlance of the force of inve- 

 terate prejudice ; which is ftill the more Unking, if wq 

 confider, that, in the fourteenth century, the painter 

 was for the moft part fculptor too, and had carried 

 this art to a very considerable degree of perfection by 

 the imitation of the antique. 



The afTertion is ftill farther confirmed, that they 

 placed the erTence of painting in the colours, and 

 thought they had reached the perfection of the art, 

 by their filling up the outline of the faints, which 

 had been introduced by the greek mailers feveral ages 

 ago, with beautiful and lively colours ; and when they 



^ wanted 



