[195] What, after all, remains the grandest quality of Ghirlandajo is his powerful drawing of characteristic heads.  They are as various as they are vigorous.  What a nation of strong men must the Florentines have been, we feel while gazing at his frescoes.

[196] In many houses he painted roundels with his own hand, and of naked women plenty.

CHAPTER VI

PAINTING

Two Periods in the True Renaissance—­Andrea Mantegna—­His Statuesque Design—­His Naturalism—­Roman Inspiration—­Triumph of Julius Caesar—­Bas-reliefs—­Luca Signorelli—­The Precursor of Michael Angelo—­Anatomical Studies—­Sense of Beauty—­The Chapel of S. Brizio at Orvieto—­Its Arabesques and Medallions—­Degrees in his Ideal—­Enthusiasm for Organic Life—­Mode of treating Classical Subjects—­Perugino—­His Pietistic Style—­His Formalism—­The Psychological Problem of his Life—­Perugino’s Pupils—­Pinturicchio—­At Spello and Siena—­Francia—­Fra Bartolommeo—­Transition to the Golden Age—­Lionardo da Vinci—­The Magician of the Renaissance—­Raphael—­The Melodist—­Correggio—­The Faun—­Michael Angelo—­The Prophet.

The Renaissance, so far as Painting is concerned, may be said to have culminated between the years 1470 and 1550.  These dates, it must be frankly admitted, are arbitrary; nor is there anything more unprofitable than the attempt to define by strict chronology the moments of an intellectual growth so complex, so unequally progressive, and so varied as that of Italian art.  All that the historian can hope to do, is to strike a mean between his reckoning of years and his more subtle calculations based on the emergence of decisive genius in special men.  An instance of such compromise is afforded by Lionardo da Vinci, who belongs, as far as dates go, to the last half of the fifteenth century, but who must, on any estimate of his achievement, be classed with Michael Angelo among the final and supreme masters of the full Renaissance.  To violate the order of time, with a view to what may here be called the morphology of Italian art, is, in his case, a plain duty.

Bearing this in mind, it is still possible to regard the eighty years above mentioned as a period no longer of promise and preparation but of fulfilment and accomplishment.  Furthermore, the thirty years at the close of the fifteenth century may be taken as one epoch in this climax of the art, while the first half of the sixteenth forms a second.  Within the former falls the best work of Mantegna, Perugino, Francia, the Bellini, Signorelli, Fra Bartolommeo.  To the latter we may reckon Michael Angelo, Raphael, Giorgione, Correggio, Titian, and Andrea del Sarto.  Lionardo da Vinci, though belonging chronologically to the former epoch, ranks first among the masters of the latter; and to this also may be given Tintoretto, though his life extended far beyond it to the last years of the century.  We thus obtain, within the period of eighty years from 1470 to 1550, two subordinate divisions of time, the one including the last part of the fifteenth century, the other extending over the best years of the sixteenth.