You will see readily that these compositions are conceived sculpturally. Every one with the slightest change could be cut in marble. Indeed the seven Virtues, Figure 18, and seven Vices impersonated in monochrome on the dado of the chapel are direct imitations of sculpture. The figures throughout the life of Christ and the Virgin are of even size, and usually all on one plane. The landscapes and architectural features are arranged simply as frames or backgrounds for the figure groups. The figures are, whenever the subject permits, clad in drapery of a classic cast. Expression is conveyed not much by the faces, which have a uniform Gothic intentness, but by the action of the entire figure and especially of the hands. The forms are rather squat and massive, yet have a homely gracefulness. There is nothing like perspective, and small regard for distance, yet the figures have convincing bulk and move gravely in adequate space. All this is due to the most consummate draughtsmanship. Giotto simplifies his seeing; what he cares for is the thrust of the shoulder, or the poise of hip, the swing of the back from the pelvis, the projection of the chest, the balance of the head on the neck and its attachment to the shoulders. All these essential facts of mass he represents by the simplest lines of direction, by broad masses of light and shade, often merely by the tugging lines in drapery that tell of the form beneath. The cave men would have understood Giotto, and so would the post-impressionists of today. Conciseness, economy, force, mass—these are the technical qualities of the work, as human insight and tenderness are its grace. As the great analytical critic Bernard Berenson has well remarked, this painting makes the strongest possible appeal to our tactile sense, stirring powerfully all our memories of touch, and presenting the painted indications as so many swiftly grasped clues to reality. We have to do with a magnificently conceived shorthand. No artist before or since has made a greater expenditure of mind or achieved a more notable inventiveness than Giotto in the Arena Chapel. [Illustration: FIG. 16. Giotto. The Virgin returning from her wedding.—_Arena, Padua._ ] [Illustration: FIG. 17. Giotto. Lamentation over Christ.—_Arena, Padua._ ]