File:Sketches of great painters for young people (1902) (14783951315).jpg

Identifier: sketchesofgreatp00dall (find matches)
Title: Sketches of great painters for young people
Year: 1902 (1900s)
Authors: Dallin, Colonna Murray, Mrs
Subjects: Painters
Publisher: New York, Boston (etc.) Silver, Burdett and Company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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ine artists were employed by theChristians to decorate their first churches, and thepictures they painted became the models which werefollowed in all early Christian art. At first, when Giotto went into the churches andthe chapels decorated by the Byzantine painters, hemust have been awed by the grandeur and gorgeous-ness which seemed to pervade everything. The colorsused in the decorations were all dark and rich, and thepictures were made splendid by the use of a great dealof gold on the backgrounds, draperies, and halos aroundthe heads of saints. The young painter noticed withadmiration the exquisite skill with which the details ofthe pictures were painted, and he must have longed tobe able to paint pictures like those he saw. But as time went on and he studied more carefullythe faces and forms in the pictures, he was disap-pointed ; for the faces were all calm and expression-less, the figures were all draped and posed in the samemonotonous way, and the hands and feet were unnatural
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The Madonna. 6 SKETCHES OF GREAT PAINTERS. in drawing. He was often oppressed by the melancholy,unreal world which they represented, and he was gladto get out into the sunlight and see the varied, activelife of the Florentine streets. At length Giotto had learned all that Cimabue couldteach him and all that he could learn from the picturesin Florence. During the years he had been studying,he had questioned many times why artists were will-ing to keep on doing the same things over and over.Sometimes he talked with his old master about it, andsaid that he thought artists had been bound by ruleslong enough, and that he intended to try to paint theworld as he saw it, with all its life and beauty. Cima-bue encouraged him, and afterward looked on withpride as he saw his pupil do greater work than he him-self had ever done. When Giottos days of apprenticeship were over, howeagerly he must have waited for his first commission topaint ! At last it came, and after that a long life ofactivity la

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