red classic marbles upon painting
was not so great as is usually supposed. The painters studied them,
but did not imitate them. Occasionally in such men as Botticelli and
Mantegna we see a following of sculpturesque example--a taking of
details and even of whole figures--but the general effect of the
antique marbles was to impress the painters with the idea that nature
was at the bottom of it all. They turned to the earth not only to
study form and feature, but to learn perspective, light, shadow,
color--in short, the technical features of art. True, religion was the
chief subject, but nature and the antique were used to give it
setting. All the fifteenth-century painting shows nature study, force,
character, sincerity; but it does not show elegance, grace, or the
full complement of color. The Early Renaissance was the promise of
great things; the High Renaissance was the fulfilment.

FLORENTINE SCHOOL: The Florentines were draughtsmen more than
colorists. The chief medium was fresco on the walls of buildings, and
architectural necessities often dictated the form of compositions.
Distemper in easel pictures was likewise used, and oil-painting,
though known, was not extensively employed until the last quarter of
the century. In technical knowledge and intellectual grasp Florence
was at this time the leader and drew to her many artists from
neighboring schools. Masaccio (1401?-1428?) was the first great nature
student of the Early Renaissance, though his master, Masolino
(1383-1447), had given proof positive of severe nature study in bits
of modelling, in drapery, and in portrait heads. Masaccio, however,
seems the first to have gone into it thoroughly and to have grasped
nature as a whole. His mastery of form, his plastic composition, his
free, broad folds of drapery, and his knowledge of light and
perspective, all placed him in the front rank of fifteenth-century
painters. Though an exact student he was not a literalist. He had a
large artistic sense, a breadth of view, and a comprehension of nature
as a mass that Michael Angelo and Raphael did not disdain to follow.
He was not a pietist, and there was no great religious feeling in his
work. Dignified truthful appearance was his creed, and in this he was
possibly influenced by Donatello the sculptor.

[Illustration: FIG. 28.--GHIRLANDAJO. THE VISITATION. LOUVRE.]

He came early in the century and died early, but his contemporaries
did not continue the advance from wh