enough understanding of natural form to recognise it when represented
adequately. There is no need for him to have any particular sensibility
to form as such.
Let us now take for our spectator a person highly endowed with the
special sensibility to form, who feels the intervals and relations of
[Illustration:
Raphael. The Transfiguration Vatican
Plate XXXI.]
forms as a musical person feels the intervals and relations of tones,
and let us suppose him either completely ignorant of, or indifferent to,
the Gospel story. Such a spectator will be likely to be immensely
excited by the extraordinary power of co-ordination of many complex
masses in a single inevitable whole, by the delicate equilibrium of many
directions of line. He will at once feel that the apparent division into
two parts is only apparent, that they are co-ordinated by a quite
peculiar power of grasping the possible correlations. He will almost
certainly be immensely excited and moved, but his emotion will have
nothing to do with the emotions which we have discussed since in the
former case, ex-hypothesi, our spectator has no clue to them.
It is evident then that we have the possibility of infinitely diverse
reactions to a work of art. We may imagine, for instance, that our pagan
spectator, though entirely unaffected by the story, is yet conscious
that the figures represent men, and that their gestures are indicative
of certain states of mind and, in consequence, we may suppose that
according to an internal bias his emotion is either heightened or
hindered by the recognition of their rhetorical insincerity. Or we may
suppose him to be so absorbed in purely formal relations as to be
indifferent even to this aspect of the design as representation. We may
suppose him to be moved by the pure contemplation of the spatial
relations of plastic volumes. It is when we have got to this point that
we seem to have isolated this extremely elusive æsthetic quality which
is the one constant quality of all works of art, and which seems to be
independent of all the prepossessions and associations which the
spectator brings with him from his past life.
A person so entirely pre-occupied with the purely formal meaning of a
work of art, so entirely blind to all the overtones and associations of
a picture like the Transfiguration is extremely rare. Nearly every one,
even if highly sensitive to purely plastic and spatial appearances, will
inevitably entertain some of those thoughts and feelings which are
conveyed by implication and by reference back to life. The difficulty is
that we frequently give wrong explanations of our feelings. I suspect,
for instance, that Goethe was deeply moved by the marvellous discovery
of design, whereby the upper and lower parts cohere in a single whole,
but the explanation he gave of this feeling took the form of a moral and
philosophical reflection.
It is evident also that owing to our difficulty in recognising the
nature of our own feelings we are liable to have our æsthetic reaction
interfered with by our reaction to the dramatic overtones and
implications. I have chosen this picture of the Transfiguration
precisely because its history is a striking example of this fact. In
Goethe’s time rhetorical gesture was no bar to the appreciation of
æsthetic unity. Later on in the nineteenth century, when the study of
the Primitives had revealed to us the charm of dramatic sincerity and
naturalness, these gesticulating figures appeared so false and
unsympathetic that even people of æsthetic sensibility were unable to
disregard them, and their dislike of the picture as illustration
actually obliterated or prevented the purely æsthetic approval which
they would probably otherwise have experienced. It seems to me that this
attempt to isolate the elusive element of the pure æsthetic reaction
from the compounds in which it occurs has been the most important
advance of modern times in practical æsthetic.
The question which this simile suggests is full of problems; are these
chemical compounds in the normal æsthetically gifted spectator, or are
they merely mixtures due to our confused recognition of what goes on in
the complex of our emotions? The picture I have chosen is also valuable,
just at the present time, from this point of view. Since it presents in
vivid opposition for most of us a very strong positive (pleasurable)
reaction on the purely æsthetic side, and a violently negative (painful)
reaction in the realm of dramatic association.
But one could easily point to pictures where the two sets of emotions
seem to run so parallel that the idea that they reinforce one another is
inevitably aroused. We might take, for instance, Giotto’s “Pietà.” In my
description of that (p. 110), it will be seen that the two currents of
feeling ran so together in my own mind that I regarded them as being
completely fused. My emotion about the dramatic idea seemed to heighten
my emotion about the plastic design. But at present I should be inclined
to say that this fusion of two sets of emotion was only apparent and was
due to my imperfect analysis of my own mental state.
Probably at this point we must hand over the question to the
experimental psychologist. It is for him to discover whether this fusion
is possible, whether, for example, such a thing as a song really
exists, that is to say, a song in which neither the meaning of the words
nor the meaning of the music predominates; in which music and words do
not merely set up separate currents of feeling, which may agree in a
general parallelism, but really fuse and become indivisible. I expect
that the answer will be in the negative.
If on the other hand such a complete fusion of different kinds of
emotion does take place, this would tend to substantiate the ordinary
opinion that the æsthetic emotion has greater value in highly
complicated compounds than in the pure state.
Supposing, then, that we are able to isolate in a work of art this
purely æsthetic quality to which Mr. Clive Bell gives the name of
“significant form.” Of what nature is it? And what is the value of this
elusive and--taking the whole mass of mankind--rather uncommon æsthetic
emotion which it causes? I put these questions without much hope of
answering them, since it is of the greatest importance to recognise
clearly what are the questions which remain to be solved.
I think we are all agreed that we mean by significant form something
other than agreeable arrangements of form, harmonious patterns, and the
like. We feel that a work which possesses it is the outcome of an
endeavour to express an idea rather than to create a pleasing object.
Personally, at least, I always feel that it implies the effort on the
part of the artist to bend to our emotional understanding by means of
his passionate conviction some intractable material which is alien to
our spirit.
I seem unable at present to get beyond this vague adumbration of the
nature of significant form. Flaubert’s “expression of the idea” seems to
me to correspond exactly to what I mean, but, alas! he never explained,
and probably could not, what he meant by the “idea.”
As to the value of the æsthetic emotion--it is clearly infinitely
removed from those ethical values to which Tolstoy would have confined
it. It seems to be as remote from actual life and its practical
utilities as the most useless mathematical theorem. One can only say
that those who experience it feel it to have a peculiar quality of
“reality” which makes it a matter of infinite importance in their lives.
Any attempt I might make to explain this would probably land me in the
depths of mysticism. On the edge of that gulf I stop.
INDEX
Albigensian crusade, 99
American and Chinese art, 74
Architecture, domestic, 183
----, styles in, 180
Art and Christianity, 87
---- and the Franciscan movement, 87, 88
---- and Poetry, 194
----, associated ideas in, 159
----, classic, 159
----, emotion and form in, 194
----, public indifference to, 168
----, Realistic, 159
----, Romantic, 159
Artist and the community, 168
----, pure, 175
Asselin, 158
Associated ideas in art, 159
Assisi, upper church at, 103
----, great church at, 87
Assyrian art, 80
“Athenæum,” 52
Author and Cézanne, 191
---- and Gauguin, 191
---- and Impressionists, 190
---- and the public, 192
---- and Old Masters, 190, 191
---- and Seurat, 191
---- and van Goch, 191
---- and Mr. Walter Sickert, 190
---- and Mr. Wilson Steer, 190
Author’s æsthetic, 188, 189
---- house, 180
Aztecs and Incas, 70
Babelon, M., 77
Babylon and Nineveh bas-reliefs, 78
Baldovinetti, 126
---- and Ucello, 126
Baldovinetti’s _Madonna and Child_, 126
---- portrait in Nat. Gall., 126
---- _Trinity_; Accademia, Florence, 126
Balfour, Mr., 60
Baroque architect, 136
---- art and Catholic reaction, 138
---- art and Poussin, 138
---- idea and El Greco, 135-139
---- idea and Michelangelo, 136, 138
---- idea and Signorelli, 138
---- in Spanish and Italian art, 138
Bartolommeo, Fra, 164
Bastien-Lepage, 17
Beardsley and Antonio Pollajuolo, 153
---- and Mantegna, 153
---- and Nature, 153
Beardsley’s art, influences on, 153
Beauty, nature of, 193, 194
Beethoven, 19
Bell, Mr. Clive, book on art, 195, 199
Bellini, Giovanni, and Dürer, 133
Berenson, Mr., 100
Bernini and El Greco, 135, 136, 137
Besnard, M., 96, 97
Blake and the Byzantine style, 142
---- and Giotto, 111, 142
---- and the Old Testament, 140, 141
---- and Michelangelo, 141
---- and Tintoretto, 141
---- on poetry, 143
Blake’s temperament, 141
Bleek, Miss, 64
Blow, Mr., 180
Bobrinsky, Prince, 79, 80
Bode, Dr., 134
Bourgeois attitude to art, 168
Bramante, 136
Braque, 158
Bridges, Robert, 147
British public, 190
Browning, 42
Brunelleschi, 4
Bumble, 42
Bushman and Assyrian art, 58
---- and Palæolithic art, 61-63
Byzantine style and Blake, 142
Cabaner, 172
Caravaggio, 5
Cézanne, 42, 158
---- and Delacroix, 173
---- and El Greco, 139
---- and Ingres, 173
---- and Marchand, 184
---- and Poussin, 173
---- and Renoir, 177, 178
---- and Rubens’ method, 173
---- and Tintoretto’s method, 173
---- and Zola, 172
----, criticism of, 156
---- misunderstood by his contemporaries, 169
----, Poussin and El Greco, 138, 139
---- the perfect type of artist, 168, 171
Cézanne’s character, 169, 170, 171
Chateaubriand, 6
_Charpentier family_, by Renoir, 178
Chelsea Book Club, 65
Chinese and American art, 74
---- and Negro cultures, 67
---- art and Matisse, 158
---- landscape, Claude and, 150
---- painting, 21
Chosroes relief, 78, 79
Christianity and art, 87
Cimabue and Giotto, 103, 106, 107_n_
Cinematograph, 13
Cinquecento art and Giotto, 114
Classic art, 159
Claude and Chinese landscape, 150
---- and Corot, 150
---- and Turner, 146
Claude and Whistler, 150
----, Ruskin on, 145, 146
---- and Leonardo da Vinci, 146
---- and Rembrandt, 146
---- “Liber Veritatis,” 149
----, influence of Virgil on, 148, 152
Claude’s articulations, 145
---- figures, 146
---- romanticism, 150
Coco style, 29
Colour, Giotto’s, 114
Conceptual art, 62, 63
Contour in painting, 160, 161
Copée, 172
Corot and Claude, 150
---- as a draughtsman, 165
Corot’s drawing of a seated woman, 165
Cosima Tura, 176
Cosmati, 99, 100, 104
Cossa, 132
Credi, Lorenzo di, and Dürer, 133
Critic’s function, 189
Cubism, 192
---- and Marchand, 186
---- and Ucello, 124
Daddi, Bernardo, and Giotto, 108_n_
Dante, 2, 97, 98, 108, 110, 116
David, 5
“Decorators,” 190
Degas, 20, 176, 190
---- as a draughtsman, 165
Delacroix and Cézanne, 173
Derain, 158, 159, 193
---- and Marchand, 185
Dickens, 175
Dickey Doyle, 153
Doucet, 158
Drama, Italian, beginning of, 101_n_
Drawing of contours, great examples, 166
---- of the figure, 164
---- of Italian Primitives, 163
---- of Renoir and Ingres compared, 178
----, Persian, 163
Druet’s, M., photographs, 158
Duccio and Giotto, 106
Dürer and the Gothic tradition, 129
---- and Leonardo da Vinci, 127
---- and Lorenzo di Credi, 133
---- and Giovanni Bellini, 133
Dürer and Jacopo de’Barbari, 133
---- and Mantegna, 131, 132
---- and Pollajuolo, 133
---- and Raphael, 127
---- and Schongauer, 132
Dürer’s “Beetle,” 164
---- letters and diary, 127
El Greco and Baroque idea, 135-139
---- and Bernini, 135, 136, 137
---- and British public, 134
---- and Cézanne, 139
----, Poussin and Cézanne, 138, 139
Emotion and form in art, 194, 197
England and French Impressionism, 190
English Art considered, 190
Fatimite textiles, 79
Figure drawing, 164
Filippino Lippi, 163
Flaubert, 199
Flemish and Florentine art, 124
---- painting and Giotto, 110
Florentine art, a characteristic of, 125
---- and Flemish art, 124
Forli, Melozzo da, 104
Form in art, 107
Francesca, Piero della, 4
Franciscan movement and art, 87, 88
Francis, St., 2, 87, 88, 112
French art classic, 158, 159, 184
French, English and Russian art compared, 158
Gamp, Mrs., 97
Gauguin, 158, 175
Germans, the, 129
Ghiberti’s commentary, 87
Giorgione, 175
Giotto and Barnardo Daddi, 108_n_
---- and Blake, in, 142
---- and Cimabue, 103, 106, 107_n_
---- and Cinquecento art, 114
---- and classical architecture, 113
---- and Duccio, 106
---- and European art, 115
---- and Flemish painting, 110
---- and Leonardo da Vinci, 116
---- and Lorenzetti, 113
---- and Masaccio, 113
---- and pre-Raphaelitism, 103
Giotto and Raphael, 115
---- and Rembrandt, 110
---- as draughtsman, 115, 116
Giotto’s colour, 114
---- figure of Joachim, 111
---- invention of Tempera, 105
---- _Pietà_, 110, 198
---- place as an artist, 116
Goethe, 197, 198
Gothic tradition and Dürer, 129, 130
Græco-Roman art, 76, 77, 78
Grunwedel, Dr., 76
Guatemala and Yucatan, 71
Head, Henry, F.R.S., 62
Herbin, 158
Hermitage, 79
Holmes, Mr. C. J., 134
Homer, 97
House, author’s, 180
Houses, architects’, 179
----, builders’, 179
----, dwelling, 180
Huxley, 8
Jacquemart-André collection, 123-126
“Jane Eyre,” 185
_Jeremiah_ of Michelangelo, 23
Johnson, Dr., 65
Joyce, Mr., 69, 73, 75
Kaiser Friedrich Museum, 47, 134
----, the, 47
Karlsruhe Museum, 78
Keats, 147
Keene, Charles, as a draughtsman, 165
Kingsborough, Lord, 71
Kraft’s stonework, 129
Krell, Oswald, 130
Kunsthistorisches Akademie, Vienna, 129
Incas and Aztecs, 70
Ingres, 164
---- and Cézanne, 173
---- as a designer, 163
---- as a draughtsman, 162
----, effect of poverty on his art, 162
Ingres’ drawing, _The Apotheosis of Napoleon_, 163
---- painting and drawing compared, 163
Lecoq, Dr., 76
Leeche’s drawings, 28
Lehmann, Dr., 74
Leonardo da Vinci, 4, 24
---- and Claude, 146
---- and Dürer, 127
---- and Giotto, 116
L’Hote, 158
----, M., writings of, 192
“Liber Veritatis” of Claude, 149
Limoges enamels, 77
Lincoln Cathedral, 78
Line, the function of, in drawing, 160
----, qualities of, 115
----, rarity of great design expressed in, 163
Loewy, Prof., 56, 57
Lorenzetti and Giotto, 113
Malatesta, Sigismondo, 87
Mantegna and Beardsley, 153
---- and Dürer, 131, 132
---- and Rembrandt, 132
Marchand, 158
----, a classic artist, 184
---- and Cézanne, 184
---- and Cubism, 186
---- and Derain, 185
Masaccio and Giotto, 113
Matisse, 158, 193
---- and Chinese art, 158
---- as a draughtsman, 167
Maya art, 71, 72, 73
Melozzo da Forli, 105
Meredith, 28
Mesopotamian art, 79
Michelangelo, 19, 23, 24, 109
---- and Baroque idea, 136, 138
---- and Blake, 141
Middle Ages, 29
Millais’ drawing, 165
Milton, 147
Minzel as a draughtsman, 165
Modigliani as a draughtsman, 167
Monet, 17, 190
Money, Mr., 48
Music, 15
----, psychology of, 199
National Gallery, 134
Nature, 24, 25
Naturalists, 190
Navicella mosaic, 104
Negro and European sculpture, 66
Neolithic art, 63
Nuremberg school, 130
Old Testament and Blake, 140, 141
Ottley’s prints, 142
Oxford movement, 6
_Pall Mall Gazette_, 154
_Parapluies, Les_, by Renoir, 176
Patine, 38, 39
Pelliot, M., 76
Perspective, 124, 125
Picasso, 157, 158, 193
_Pietà_, by Giotto, 110
Pindar, 87
Pliny on painting, 160, 161
Podsnap, Mr., 179
Poetry and art, 194
----, Blake on, 143
Pollajuolo, Antonio and Beardsley, 153
----, 147
---- and Dürer, 133
Pompeii, 30, 79
Post-Impressionism, 194
Post-Impressionists at the Grafton Gallery, 191, 193
----, criticism of, 156, 157
Poussin, 159
---- and Baroque art, 138
---- and Cézanne, 173
----, El Greco, and Cézanne, 138
Pre-Raphaelite movement, 190
Primitives, study of, in England, 198
_Primum Mobile_ in Tarocchi prints, 133
Psychologists and art, 54
Public indifference to art, 168
Racine, 147
Raphael, 19, 164
---- and Dürer, 127
Raphael’s “Transfiguration,” 196, 198
Realistic art, 159
Rembrandt, 5, 20, 147
---- and Claude, 146
---- and Giotto, 110
---- and Mantegna, 132
---- as a draughtsman, 165, 166
Rembrandt’s characteristics, 165
Renaissance, 76
Renoir and Cézanne, 177, 178, 190
---- and Titian, 178
Renoir compared to Giorgione and Titian, 175
Renoir’s “Charpentier Family,” 178
---- “Les Parapluies,” 176, 178
Robida, 153
Rodin, 38
Romans, the, 129
Romantic art, 159
Romanticism, Claude’s, 150
Ross, Dr. Denman, 21
Rossetti’s relationship to Millais, 165
Rousseau, 156
Rowlandson’s style in drawing, 165
Rubens, 164, 175
Ruskin, 14, 38
---- on Claude, 145, 146
S. Bonaventura, 87, 101, 102
S. Francis, 2, 87, 88, 112
_S. Peter’s Crucifixion_, by Giotto, 107
Sassanid art, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80
Schongauer and Dürer, 132
Scrovegni, 110
Sculpture, Greek, 57
Shakespeare, 147
Shaw, Mr. Bernard, 41
Shelley, 42
Sickert, Mr. Walter, 175
Sicily, 77
Siegfried, 153
Sigismondo Malatesta, 87
“Significant Form,” 199
Signorelli and Baroque idea, 138
---- and Florence, 126
---- and Ucello, 126
---- and Umbrian art, 126
Signorelli’s _Holy Family_, 126
Smith, Robertson, 9
Song, psychology of, 199
Spectator of a picture, psychology of, 196, 197
Spencer, Herbert, 8, 9
Stefaneschi, Cardinal, 103, 104, 105, 108_n_
Stein, Dr., 76
Storr’s woodwork, 129, 130
Subject picture, 53
Sung, 32
Tahiti, 175
Tarrocchi engravings, 132
Tempera, Giotto’s invention, 105
Tennyson, 24, 26
Tiepolo, 161, 162
Tintoretto and Blake, 141
Titian, 19, 175
---- and Renoir compared, 178
Tolstoy, 16, 18, 19
Tolstoy’s “What is Art?” 193, 199
Todi, Jacopone di, 87
_Tondo_ of Michelangelo, 23
Tongue, Miss, 57, 59
Tura, Cosima, 177
Turner and Claude, 146
Tussaud, Mme., 5
Ucello, 4
---- and Baldovinetti, 126
---- and Cubism, 124
Ucello and Van Eyck, 124
---- and perspective, 124, 125
---- and Signorelli, 126
Ucello’s “St. George,” 123, 125
Vandyke, 164
Van Eyck and Ucello, 124
---- Gogh, 158
Varnish, 139
Vasari, 87, 169
---- and Ucello, 123
Victorians and art, 65
Viollet-le-Duc, 185
Virgil’s influence on Claude, 148, 152
Von Tschudi, 139
Waldus, Petrus, 99, 100
Watteau, 164
Wells, H. G., 36
“What is Art?” by Tolstoy, 18
Whistler, 7
---- and Beardsley, 154
---- and Claude, 150
---- and Ruskin, 190
Whistler’s Impressionism, 190
Whittier, 26
Young, Brigham, 74
Yucatan and Guatemala, 71
Zola, 5
---- and Cézanne, 172
Zuloaga, Señor, 155
THE END
PRINTED IN ENGLAND BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND
BECCLES.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] From notes of a lecture given to the Fabian Society, 1917.
[2] New Quarterly, 1909.
[3] Rodin is reported to have said, “A woman, a mountain, a
horse--they are all the same thing; they are made on the same
principles.” That is to say, their forms, when viewed with the
disinterested vision of the imaginative life, have similar emotional
elements.
[4] I do not forget that at the death of Tennyson the writer in the
_Daily Telegraph_ averred that “level beams of the setting moon
streamed in upon the face of the dying bard”; but then, after all, in
its way the _Daily Telegraph_ is a work of art.
[5] Athenæum, 1919.
[6] Athenæum, 1919.
[7] Reprinted with considerable alterations from “The Great State.”
(Harper. 1912.)
[8] Athenæum, 1919.
[9] Burlington Magazine, 1910.
[10] “The Rendering of Nature in Early Greek Art.” By Emmanuel Loewy.
Translated by J. Fothergill. Duckworth. 1907.
[11] “Bushman Drawings,” copied by M. Helen Tongue, with a preface by
Henry Balfour. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1909. £3 3_s._ net.
[12] This absence of decorative feeling may be due to the irregular
and vague outlines of the picture space. It is when the picture must
be fitted within determined limits that decoration begins. I have
noticed that children’s drawings are never decorative when they have
the whole surface of a sheet of paper to draw on, but they will design
a frieze with well-marked rhythm when they have only a narrow strip.
[13] This is certainly the case with the Australian Bushmen.
[14] Athenæum, 1920.
[15] Burlington Magazine, 1918.
[16] Thomas A. Joyce, (1) “South American Archæology,” London
(Macmillan), 1912; (2) “Mexican Archæology,” London (Lee Warner),
1914; (3) “Central American Archæology,” London and New York (Putnam),
1916.
[17] _The Burlington Magazine_, vol. xvii., p. 22 (April, 1910).
[18] Burlington Magazine, 1910.
[19] G. Migeon, _Gazette des Beaux-Arts_, June, 1905, and “Manuel
d’Art Musulman,” p. 226.
[20] I cannot help calling attention, though without any attempt at
explaining it, to the striking similarity to these Sassanid and early
Mohammedan water jugs shown by an example of Sung pottery lent by Mr.
Eumorfopoulos to the recent exhibition at the Burlington Fine Arts
Club, Case A, No. 43. Here a very similar form of spout is modelled
into a phœnix’s head.
[21] The following, from the Monthly Review, 1901, is perhaps more
than any other article here reprinted, at variance with the more
recent expressions of my æsthetic ideas. It will be seen that great
emphasis is laid on Giotto’s expression of the dramatic idea in his
pictures. I still think this is perfectly true so far as it goes, nor
do I doubt that an artist like Giotto did envisage such an expression.
Where I should be inclined to disagree is that there underlies this
article a tacit assumption not only that the dramatic idea may have
inspired the artist to the creation of his form, but that the value
of the form for us is bound up without recognition of the dramatic
idea. It now seems to me possible by a more searching analysis of our
experience in front of a work of art to disentangle our reaction to
pure form from our reaction to its implied associated ideas.
[22] _Cf._ H. Thode: “Franz von Assisi.”
[23] Dr. J. P. Richter: “Lectures on the National Gallery.”
[24] One picture, however, ascribed by Vasari to Cimabue, namely, the
Madonna of the National Gallery, does not bear the characteristics of
this group. Dr. Richter’s argument for giving the Rucellai painting
to Duccio depends largely on the likeness of this to the Maesta, but
there is no reason to cling so closely to Vasari’s attributions. If we
except the National Gallery Madonna, which shows the characteristics
of the Siennese school, these pictures, including the Rucellai
Madonna, will be found to cohere by many common peculiarities not
shared by Duccio. Among these we may notice the following: The eye
has the upper eyelid strongly marked; it has a peculiar languishing
expression, due in part to the large elliptical iris (Duccio’s eyes
have a small, bright, round iris with a keen expression); the nose is
distinctly articulated into three segments; the mouth is generally
slewed round from the perpendicular; the hands are curiously curved,
and in all the Madonnas clutch the supports of the throne; the hair
bows seen upon the halos have a constant and quite peculiar shape; the
drapery is designed in rectilinear triangular folds, very different
from Duccio’s more sinuous and flowing line. The folds of the drapery
where they come to the contour of the figure have no effect upon the
form of the outline, an error which Duccio never makes. Finally, the
thrones in all these pictures have a constant form; they are made
of turned wood with a high footstool, and are seen from the side;
Duccio’s is of stone and seen from the front. That the Rucellai
Madonna has a morbidezza which is wanting in the earlier works can
hardly be considered a sufficient distinction to set against the
formal characteristics. It is clearly a later work, painted probably
about the year 1300, and Cimabue, like all the other artists of the
time, was striving constantly in the direction of greater fusion of
tones.