ion of which
modernists become so furious, it is worth recalling that the earliest
story about painting relates to Zeuxis, who is said to have painted a
bunch of grapes with such skill that the birds ignored the fruit and
pecked at the picture. In later times we hear of Rembrandt being the
butt of his pupils, who, knowing his love of money, used to paint coins
on the floor; and there are plenty of stories of people painting flies
and other objects so naturally as to deceive the unwary spectator.
Vasari is continually praising his compatriots for painting "like the
life."

Lastly, the approbation, or if possible the acclamation, of the public
has seldom if ever been unconsidered by the artist. Where it has, it has
only been the greatest genius that has been able to exist without it. A
man who has anything to say must have somebody to say it to; and though
a painter may seem to be wasting the best part of his life in trying to
make the people understand what he has to say in his language instead of
talking to them in their own common tongue, it is rarely that he fails
in the end, even if, alas for him, the understanding comes too late to
be of any benefit to himself.

Cimabue's last work is said to be a figure, which was left unfinished,
of S. John, in mosaic, for the Duomo at Pisa. This was in 1302, which is
supposed to be the date of his death, though Vasari puts it two years
earlier, at the time he was engaged with the architect Arnolfo Lapi in
superintending the building of the Duomo in Florence, where he is
buried.

II

GIOTTO DI BONDONE

While according all due honour, and probably more, to Cimabue as the
originator of modern painting, it is to his pupil, GIOTTO, that we are
accustomed to look for the first developments of its possibilities. Had
Cimabue's successors been as conservative as his instructors, we might
still be not very much better off than if he had never lived. For much
as there is to admire in Cimabue's painting, it is only the first flush
of the dawn which it heralded, and though containing the germ of the
future development of the art, is yet without any of the glory which in
the fulness of time was to result from it.

To Giotto, Vasari considers, "is due the gratitude which the masters in
painting owe to Nature, seeing that he alone succeeded in resuscitating
art and restoring her to a path that may be called the true one; and
that the art of design, of which his contemporaries had