hers: and still less will any artist, that can distinguish
between excellence and insipidity, ever borrow from them. Raffaelle, who
had no lack of invention, took the greatest pains to select; and when
designing "his greatest as well as latest works, the Cartoons," he had
before him studies he had made from Masaccio. He borrowed from him "two
noble figures of St Paul." The only alteration he made was in the
showing both hands, which he thought in a principal figure should never
be omitted. Masaccio's work was well known; Raffaelle was not ashamed to
have borrowed. "Such men, surely, need not be ashamed of that friendly
intercourse which ought to exist among artists, of receiving from the
dead, and giving to the living, and perhaps to those who are yet unborn.
The daily food and nourishment of the mind of an artist is found in the
great works of his predecessors. 'Serpens nisi serpentem comederit, non
fit draco.'" The fact is, the most self-sufficient of men are greater
borrowers than they will admit, or perhaps know; their very novelties,
if they have any, commence upon the thoughts of others, which are laid
down as a foundation in their own minds. The common sense, which is
called "common property," is that stock which all that have gone before
us have left behind them; and we are but admitted to the heirship of
what they have acquired. Masaccio Sir Joshua considers to have been "one
of the great fathers of modern art." He was the first who gave
largeness, and "discovered the path that leads to every excellence to
which the art afterwards arrived." It is enough to say of him, that
Michael Angelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Pietro Perugino, Raffaelle,
Bartolomeo, Andrea del Sarto, Il Rosso, and Pierino del Vaga, formed
their taste by studying his works. "An artist-like mind" is best formed
by studying the works of great artists. It is a good practice to
consider figures in works of great masters as statues which we may take
in any view. This did Raffaelle, in his "Sergius Paulus," from Masaccio.
Lest there should be any misunderstanding of this sort of borrowing,
which he justifies, he again refers to the practice of Raffaelle in this
his borrowing from Masaccio. The two figures of St Paul, he doubted if
Raffaelle could have improved; but "he had the address to change in some
measure without diminishing the grandeur of their character." For a
serene composed dignity, he has given animation suited to their
employment. "In the same