perfection in the feet, hands, hair, and heard, which alone can fully satisfy the cultivated judgment and the refined taste of the master in art; even though the limbs are, upon the whole, in just accord with the part of the antique statue still remaining, and although there is without doubt a certain harmony in the proportions.
Had these masters attained to that minuteness of finish which constitutes the perfection and bloom of art, they would also have displayed power and boldness in their works, when the result would have been a lightness, beauty, and grace which are not now to be found, although we perceive proofs of diligent endeavour, but which are, nevertheless, always secured to beautiful figures by the highest efforts of art, whether in sculpture or painting. Nor could this last perfection—this certain somewhat thus wanting—be readily obtained, seeing that, from much study, the manner derives a sort of dryness, when it is from study alone that men are labouring to force that highest finish. But to those who came after, success was rendered possible, from the time when they beheld those works of ancient art, which Pliny enumerates as among the most justly celebrated drawn forth from the recesses of the earth for their benefit. The Laocoon namely, the Hercules, the mighty Torso of the Belvedere, with the Venus, the Cleopatra, the Apollo, and many others, in which softness and power are alike visible, which display roundness and fulness justly restrained, and which, reproducing the most perfect beauty of nature, with attitudes and movements wholly free from distortion, but turning or bending gracefully in certain parts, exhibit everywhere the flexibility and ease of nature, with the most attractive grace. These statues caused the disappearance of that hard, dry sharpness of manner which had been still left in art, by the too anxious study of Piero della Francesco, Lazzaro Vasari, Alesso Baldovinetti, Andrea dal Castagno, Pesello, Ercole Ferrarese, Giovan Bellini, Cosimo Roselli, the Abbot of San Clemente, Domenico Ghirlandajo, Sandro Botticelli, Andrea Mantegna,[1] Filippo Lippi, and Luca Signorelli.
- ↑ Fra Filippo Lippi. An Italian commentator, who is repeated by the German editor, remarks that Vasari has forgotten to mention Masaccio, and exclams, “Woe to him, if Masaccio had not been a Tuscan!” But may not this omission be intentional on the part of Vasari, who may thus have
