s, and in daily life; of these have been Abraham,
Moses, David, and Cyrus in the elder world--Alfred, Charlemagne, Dante,
and perhaps Shakespeare, in the new,--and in art, Niccola Pisano,
Leonardo da Vinci and Michael Angelo. But Giotto, however great as the
patriarch of his peculiar tribe, was not of these few, and we ought not
therefore to misapprehend him, or be disappointed at finding his
Madonnas (for instance) less exquisitely spiritual than the Sienese, or
those of Fra Angelico and some later painters, who seem to have dipped
their pencils in the rainbow that circles the throne of God,--they are
pure and modest, but that is all; on the other hand, where his
Contemplative rivals lack utterance, he speaks most feelingly to the
heart in his own peculiar language of Dramatic composition--he glances
over creation with the eye of love, all the charities of life follow in
his steps, and his thoughts are as the breath of the morning. A man of
the world, living in it and loving it, yet with a heart that it could
not spoil nor wean from its allegiance to God--'non meno buon Cristiano
che eccellente pittore,' as Vasari emphatically describes him--his
religion breathes of the free air of heaven rather than the cloister,
neither enthusiastic nor superstitious, but practical, manly and
healthy--and this, although the picturesque biographer of S.
Francis!"--Vol. ii., pp. 260-264.

* * *

68. This is all as admirably felt as expressed, and to those acquainted
with and accustomed to love the works of the painter, it leaves nothing
to be asked for; but we must again remind Lord Lindsay, that he has
throughout left the _artistical_ orbit of Giotto undefined, and the
offense of his manner unremoved, as far as regards the uninitiated
spectator. We question whether from all that he has written, the
untraveled reader could form any distinct idea of the painter's peculiar
merits or methods, or that the estimate, if formed, might not afterwards
expose him to severe disappointment. It ought especially to have been
stated, that the Giottesque system of chiaroscuro is one of pure, quiet,
pervading daylight. No _cast_ shadows ever occur, and this remains a
marked characteristic of all the works of the Giotteschi. Of course, all
subtleties of reflected light or raised color are unthought of. Shade is
only given as far as it is necessary to the articulation of simple
forms, nor even then is it rightly adapted to the color o