214 REVIEWS AND PAMPHLETS ON ART

small tempera series, also in the Academy;¹ the figure of Satan shows much analogy to that of the Envy of the Arena chapel; and many other portions of the design are evidently either sketches of this very subject by Giotto himself, or dexterous compilations from his works by a loving pupil. Lord Lindsay has not done justice to the upper division-the Satan before God:² it is one of the very finest thoughts ever realized by the Giotteschi. The serenity of power in the principal figure is very noble; no expression of wrath, or even of scorn, in the look which commands the evil spirit. The position of the latter, and countenance, are less grotesque and more demoniacal than is usual in paintings of the time; the triple wings expanded-the arms crossed over the breast, and holding each other above the elbow, the claws fixing in the flesh; a serpent buries its head in a cleft in the bosom, and the right hoof is lifted, as if to stamp.

46. We should have been glad if Lord Lindsay had given

¹ [The Envy of the Arena Chapel forms the frontispiece to Fors Clavigera, Letter 6. The two series of panels in the Accademia are now sometimes attributed to Taddeo Gaddi-one set is of scenes from the life of St. Francis, the other, scenes from the life of Christ; they were formerly in Santa Croce. In his diary of 1845 Ruskin thus notes them:-

“One feels the evil of colour perhaps more in the celebrated series of the life of our Lord and St. Francis, by Giotto, than in any other works in Florence. These are all exceedingly beautiful in line, but the colour, though not badly arranged, yet compels the eye to dwell on ugly and shapeless spaces, instead of the beautiful harmony of the contours, and half the value of the design is lost. The colours themselves are not painfully glaring as in Buffalmaco, but there is little in them to satisfy and nothing to please. The design looks like the work of the Campo Santo hand, but the drawing of the features is blunt and bad. In the ‘Christ disputing with the Doctors,’ one of the faces is the same given to one of the three friends of Job in the Campo Santo. Another, the one I have commonly called Eliphaz, occurs in his picture of the Ascension, in the small room, among the Apostles on the left. This I consider the finest tempera figure of Giotto I have seen; the movement and passion of its figures is not to be surpassed. More, however, is told by the action than the expression. Beside it is an Annunciation of extreme beauty; the Virgin folds her hand over her bosom under her blue robe, which being carried with it, gives a grand angular form. All the Virgins in the other series, as well as this one, have a deep blue mantle, which in the standing figures sometimes cuts them all down in half, but the chastity, severity, and modest intensity of feeling indicated by all the actions of this figure, wherever it occurs, are not to be rivalled.”]

² [This fresco is also referred to in Modern Painters, vol. ii. (Vol. IV. p. 318 n.); the description here closely follows the entry from Ruskin’s diary of 1845, there cited.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]