beauty of isolated parts or episodes; but the critical eye vainly seeks one picture in which the simple qualities required by the gravity of sculpture are fully maintained. The general features of this great work are crowding of figures, and their undue subordination to the distances and accessories, a reversal of the Giottesque principle which makes distances of minor importance; an appli cation of linear perspective to plastic art, unusual, and perhaps to be entirely condemned, but at the same time, great progress over past efforts in the definition of form and a perfection in the use and production of ornaments of fruit, garlands, and birds in their natural shape, inimit able and unsurpassed to this day. How far the latter quality may be detrimental by casting the figure subjects into the shade may be left to the individual judgment of the observer. Vasari, who always preferred modern to older art, naturally placed the second before the first of Ghiberti’s gates. In this he has been followed by Ru- mohr. The true maxims of art were, however, best pre served in the first, least in the second. The same age which welcomed the gentle talent of Angelico, the manly genius of Masaccio, the polished art of Brunelleschi and Ghiberti, gave expansion to Dona tello’s rugged style. 1 A daring energy, a fiery temper, and a frank demeanour, united to an open disdain of the finesses of culture, were remarkable in him; and his life and works, if studied apart by a philosopher and a critic, would yield the same conclusions to both. His character and style are alike illustrated in that encounter with Brunelleschi, which ended in the triumph of the latter. “To you the power of delineating the Saviour, to me that of representing rustics,” such was his final remark to his friendly rival. 2 But Donatello was by no means an ordinary man. The strong pulsation of his blood, the febrile activity of his hand might disable him from re flecting on the creation of ideal gentleness of type or 1 Born 1386. Died 1468. 2 Vas. Yol. III. p. 247.
