386 EARLY CHRISTIAN ART. Chap. XIY. the art of Giotto was thus brought to a very low and uninteresting standard. It would be difficult to say in what respect this poor Giottesque differs as to quality from the older art which was previously called Byzan tine. The same class of painters who, before Giotto, existed every where is noticed in greater numbers after his death, but still at an uniform level of inferiority. The tendency of the last half century has been to im part to inferior productions a value they do not possess, whilst, previous to that time, too little importance was given to them. At first every thing old was Greek; then it was assigned to Cimabue; now it is by Giotto. Nor is it the least painful deception which awaits the critic that, wherever he turns, he finds men who pretend to appreciate the great master, and yet attribute to him the feeble productions of second or third rate artists.