d the exponents of the literature of
antiquity; the strong young present was to profit by the experience of
the past.

As it was with literature, so likewise was it with art. The most purely
mediaeval sculpture, the sculpture which has, as it were, just detached
itself from the capitals and porches of the cathedral, is the direct
pupil of the antique; and the three great Gothic sculptors, Niccolo,
Giovanni, and Andrea of Pisa, learn from fragments of Greek and Roman
sculpture how to model the figure of the Redeemer and how to chisel the
robe of the Virgin. This spontaneous mediaeval sculpture, aided by the
antique, preceded by a full half-century the appearance of mediaeval
painting; and it was from the study of the works of the Pisan sculptors
that Cimabue and Giotto learned to depart from the mummified
monstrosities of the hieratic, Byzantine and Roman style of Giunta and
Berlinghieri. Thus, through the sculpture of the Pisans the painting of
the school of Giotto received at second-hand the teachings of Antiquity.
Sculpture had created painting; painting now belonged to the painters.
In the hands of Giotto it developed within a few years into an art which
seemed almost mature, an art dealing victoriously with its materials,
triumphantly solving its problems, executing as if by miracle all that
was demanded of it. But Giottesque art appeared perfect merely because
it was limited; it did all that was required of it, because that which
was required was little; it was not asked to reproduce the real nor to
represent the beautiful; it was asked merely to suggest a character, a
situation, a story.

The artistic development of a nation has its exact parallel in the
artistic development of an individual. The child uses his pencil to tell
a story, satisfied with balls and sticks as body, head, and legs;
provided he and his friends can associate with them the ideas in their
minds. The youth sets himself to copy what he sees, to reproduce forms
and effects, without any aim beyond the mere pleasure of copying. The
mature artist strives to obtain forms and effects of which he approves,
he seeks for beauty. In the life of Italian painting the generation of
men who flourished at the beginning of the sixteenth century are the
mature artists; the men of the fifteenth century are the inexperienced
youths; the Giottesques are the children--children Titanic and
seraph-like, but children nevertheless; and, like all children, learning
mo