ut prosaic painter as the Giotto of the fifteenth century in
Florence, the tutelary angel of an age inaugurated by Masaccio. He was a
consummate master of the science collected by his predecessors. No one
surpassed him in the use of fresco. His orderly composition, in the
distribution of figures and the use of architectural accessories, is
worthy of all praise; his portraiture is dignified and powerful;[195] his
choice of form and treatment of drapery, noble. Yet we cannot help noting
his deficiency in the finer sense of beauty, the absence of poetic
inspiration or feeling in his work, the commonplaceness of his colour, and
his wearisome reiteration of calculated effects. He never arrests
attention by sallies of originality, or charms us by the delicacies of
suggestive fancy. He is always at the level of his own achievement, so
that in the end we are as tired with able Ghirlandajo as the men of Athens
with just Aristides. Who, however, but Ghirlandajo could have composed the
frescoes of "S. Fina" at S. Gemignano, the fresco of the "Death of S.
Francis" in S. Trinita at Florence, or that again of the "Birth of the
Virgin" in S. Maria Novella? There is something irritating in pure common
sense imported into art, and Ghirlandajo's masterpieces are the apotheosis
of that quality. How correct, how judicious, how sagacious, how
mathematically ordered! we exclaim; but we gaze without emotion, and we
turn away without regret. It does not vex us to read how Ghirlandajo used
to scold his prentices for neglecting trivial orders that would fill his
purse with money. Similar traits of character pain us with a sense of
impropriety in Perugino. They harmonise with all we feel about the work of
Ghirlandajo. It is bitter mortification to know that Michael Angelo never
found space or time sufficient for his vast designs in sculpture. It is a
positive relief to think that Ghirlandajo sighed in vain to have the
circuit of the walls of Florence given him to paint. How he would have
covered them with compositions, stately, flowing, easy, sober, and
incapable of stirring any feeling in the soul!

Though Ghirlandajo lacked almost every true poetic quality, he combined
the art of distributing figures in a given space, with perspective, fair
knowledge of the nude, and truth to nature, in greater perfection than any
other single painter of the age he represents; and since these were
precisely the gifts of that age to the great Renaissance masters,