cannot do otherwise than consider them as truly ingenious and excellent, they having been above all things solicitous for the welfare of the art, which they have laboured to ameliorate at all points, without regard to dif&culty, expense, or labour, and without a thought for their own interests. Continuing then, during this whole period, to work on panel and canvas,[1] with no other mode of colouring than that of distemper, which method was commenced by Cimabue in the year 1250, at the time when he worked with those Greeks,[2] and was afterwards followed by Giotto, and the others of whom we have been speaking up to the present time, they constantly practised the same modes of operation, although it was not unknown to artists that in tempera paintings there wanted a certain softness and freshness, which, if they could be secured, were well calculated to give increased grace to the design, a more perfect charm to the colouring, and greater facility in the blending and union of the colours, which they had always laid on with the point of the pencil only.. But although many, discussing the matter, had zealously sought to effect this desirable object, yet none had discovered a satisfactory method, either by the use of liquid varnish, or by that of any kind of colour mixed with the tempera vehicles. Among the numerous artists who tried these and similar methods, but found all vain, were Alesso Baldovinetti, Pesello, and many others, none of whom could succeed in giving to their works that beauty and excellence which they had imagined to themselves, but which they failed to reproduce with the hand. And even if they had found what they sought, they would still have wanted the
- ↑ Paintings on canvas only were but occasionally seen at this time, as when the work was intended to be borne in procession, or where lightness was required for some other cause. Canvas was nevertheless frequently used to cover the wood most generally used, but over the canvas a ground of gypsum was then laid, and on this, when he had well glazed it, the artist worked with his colours in distemper. For the various processes used in the preparation of the ground, the choice and mixture of colours, &c., see Cennino Cennini, Trattato della Pittura. See also the various Treatises on the Ancient Practice of Painting, translated by Mrs. Merrifield; with Eastlake’s Materials towards a History of Oil Painting, in all of which most ample and valuable details on these subjects will be found.
- ↑ See the Life of Cimabue, vol, i.
he has divided his work, and on each of which he treats of a certain manner or period of art. See the Introduction to the Second Part, vol. i.
