ever possessed. Andrea was most especially celebrated for his castings in bronze, and was, on this account, highly honoured by all, but more particularly by the Florentines, by whom his works were so largely remunerated, that he did not scruple to change his country, his connexions, his property, and his friends. The difficulties encountered by the masters in sculpture who had preceded him, were of infinite advantage to Andrea, since the works of those artists were so rude and common-place, that those of the Pisan were esteemed a miracle. And that these earlier sculptures were indeed coarse, is clearly shown, as we have said elsewhere; by those over the principal door of San Paolo, in Florence, as well as by some in. stone, which are in the church of Ognissanti; and are better calculated to excite ridicule, than admiration or pleasure,[1] in those who examine them. It is, however, certain, that if the art of sculpture incur the danger of losing its vitality, there is always less difficulty in its restoration than in that of painting, the former having ever the living and natural model, in the rounded forms which are such as she requires, while the latter cannot so lightly recover the pure outlines and correct manner demanded for her works, and from which alone the labours of the painter derive majesty, beauty, and grace. Fortune was in other respects favourable to Andrea, many relics of antiquity having been collected in Pisa by the fleets of that city, as results of their frequent victories; and from these, which still remain, as we have said, about the cathedral and Campo Santo, the sculptor Andrea obtained such instruction, and derived such light, as could by no means be obtained by the painter Giotto, since the ancient paintings had not been preserved as the sculptures had been. And although statues are often destroyed by fires, ruined by the furies of war, buried, or transported to distant lands, yet, whoever understands the subject thoroughly can readily distinguish the difference which exists in the manner of different countries; as, for example, that of the Egyptians—marked by the length and attenuation of the figures—from the Greek,
- ↑ The sculptures of St. Paul and of Ognissanti are destroyed; but the lateral doors of the Pisan cathedral suffice to prove the rudeness of Cimabue’s sculptures. The pulpits of Niccola and Giovanni, of Pisa, however, so greatly lauded by Vasari in his life of those artists, stand in flagrant contradiction to his present remarks.—Ed. Flor. 1846.
