er on seeing the shadow of the nose in a
portrait. In Europe, a gigantic and almost sudden stride was made,
towards the close of the fifteenth century, under an influence from
which the Chinese were debarred, and the nature of which we shall
presently explain.

Let us first, however, just notice, that the charms of gaudy
inartistic colouring frequently exercise a powerful sway even over
minds familiar with better things; although that sway is always
indicative of the decay of intellectual or moral freshness. Thus, it
is remarked by an old Greek author (Dionysius of Halicarnassus), that
the perfection to which painting had been brought by Apelles, had
degenerated under Augustus; the painters being so much fascinated by
the new art of colouring, that they neglected design, and preferred
the brilliant or gaudy to the solid, and counterfeit to natural
beauty. What this 'perfection' of Apelles was, we cannot now tell; but
the probability is, that it existed only in design, and that the union
of this with artistic colouring was reserved for the modern masters.

Before these masters appeared, and before the influence we are about
to refer to was felt in Europe, some efforts were made by unassisted
genius to rise beyond the conventionalities of the time; in the latter
half of the thirteenth century, Cimabue already surpassed his modern
Greek preceptors; and his disciple Giotto was considered so natural
and original, that his style could not be referred to any existing
school, but was called the _maniera di Giotto_. 'Instead of the harsh
outline,' says Vasari, 'circumscribing the whole figure, the glaring
eyes, the pointed hands and feet, and all the defects arising from a
total want of shadow, the figures of Giotto exhibit a better attitude;
the heads have an air of life and freedom, the drapery is more
natural, and there are even some attempts at fore-shortening the
limbs.' All this, however, although a decided improvement on mediaeval
art, was rude and imperfect--it was only the first faint dawn of a
better light. 'As yet,' to use the words of Roscoe, 'the characters
rarely excelled the daily prototypes of common life; and their forms,
although at times sufficiently accurate, were often vulgar and
heavy.... To everything great and elevated, the art was yet a
stranger: even the celebrated picture of Pollajuolo exhibits only a
group of half-naked and vulgar wretches, discharging their arrows at a
miserable fellow-creature, wh