m which shows he has not yet mastered the principles
of selection or the dignified fitness which guided the great masters;
as, for instance, in the case of the old woman, among the spectators of
the Crucifixion, who shows her grief by blowing her nose. He lets
himself be drawn off by all manner of trivial detail and of gay costume;
but again in such frescoes as S. Lucia, or the "Beheading of St.
George," in the Paduan chapel of the Santo, he proves how well he
understands the force of solid, simply-draped figures, direct in gesture
and expression, while the decorative use he makes of lances against the
background was long afterwards perhaps imitated, but hardly surpassed,
by Tintoretto.

Pisanello, who followed quickly upon Altichiero and his assistant,
Avanzi, exhibits the same chivalresque and courtly inclinations which
commended Gentile da Fabriano to the splendour-loving Venetians. Verona,
under the peaceful but gallant government of the Scaligeri, had long
been the home of all knightly lore, and the artists had been employed to
decorate chapels for the families of the great nobles. Among these,
Pisanello had attained a high place. Though very few of his paintings
remain, they all show these influences, and his subtly modelled medals
establish him as a master of the most finished type. A much destroyed
fresco in S. Anastasia, Verona, portrays the history of St. George and
the Dragon. In the St. George we probably see the portrait of the great
personage in whose honour the fresco was painted. He is mounting his
horse, which, seen from behind, reminds us of the fore-shortened
chargers of Paolo Uccello. The rescued princess, also a portrait, wears
a magnificent dress and an elaborate headgear in the fashion of the day.
Other horses, fiery and spirited, are grouped around, and in the band
of cavaliers, beyond St. George, every head is individualised; one is
beautiful, another brutal, and so on through the seven. A greyhound
and spaniel in the foreground are superbly painted, the background is
excellent, and a realistic touch is given by the corpses which dangle
unheeded from the trees outside the castle-gate. A ruined, but
fortunately not restored, "Annunciation" in S. Fermo, has a simple,
slender figure of the Virgin sitting by her white bed, and the angel,
with great sweeping, rushing wings and bowed, child-like head with fair
hair, is a most sweet and keen figure, thrilling and convincing, in
contrast to all the dead