Faces with goggling eyes and
rigid lips might be endured with ready help of imagination, for gods,
angels, saints, or hunters--or for anybody else in scenes of recognized
legend, but would not serve for pleasant portraiture of one's own self
--or of the incidents of gentle, actual life. And even Cimabue did not
venture to leave the sphere of conventionally reverenced dignity. He
still painted--though beautifully--only the Madonna, and the St.
Joseph, and the Christ. These he made living,--Florence asked no more:
and "Credette Cimabue nella pintura tener lo campo."
But Giotto came from the field, and saw with his simple eyes a lowlier
worth. And he painted--the Madonna, and St. Joseph, and the Christ,--yes,
by all means if you choose to call them so, but essentially,--Mamma, Papa,
and the Baby. And all Italy threw up its cap,--"Ora ha Giotto il grido."
For he defines, explains, and exalts, every sweet incident of human
nature; and makes dear to daily life every mystic imagination of
natures greater than our own. He reconciles, while he intensifies,
every virtue of domestic and monastic thought. He makes the simplest
household duties sacred, and the highest religious passions serviceable
and just.
THE THIRD MORNING.
BEFORE THE SOLDAN.
I promised some note of Sandro's Fortitude, before whom I asked you to
sit and read the end of my last letter; and I've lost my own notes
about her, and forget, now, whether she has a sword, or a mace;--it
does not matter.
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