It is interesting to observe that the two consecutive acts are here shown as co-existent: a thing frequently done, as we have seen, in early art. Finally, another characteristic feature is the introduction of the "grotesque" in the animals that support the throne as a relief from the strained seriousness of the rest of the picture (A. H. Macmurdo in _Century Guild Hobby Horse_, i. 21-28). The picture, signed by the painter, was an altar-front in the church of Santa Margherita at Arezzo. It is painted in _tempera_ on linen cloth attached to wood, and even in Vasari's day its preservation was deemed remarkable. "It comprises," he says, "many small figures, of better manner than those of larger size, designed with more grace and finished with greater delicacy; and this work deserves consideration, not only because the little figures are so carefully done that they look like miniatures, but also for the extraordinary fact that a picture on canvas should have continued in such good preservation during 300 years" (i. 89). 565. THE MADONNA AND CHILD. _Cimabue_ (Florentine: 1240-1302). Giovanni Cenni, called Cimabue, has been called the "Father of Modern Painting." He imitated the Byzantine style, says Vasari, but "improved the art and relieved it greatly from its uncouth manner." He did not entirely free himself from the dismal formalism of his predecessors, but he infused new life into the old traditional types. A contemporary of his was Niccola Pisano, whose work in the allied art of sculpture shows a more marked advance, and who perhaps really gave the new impulse which art received at this period--an impulse carried on in the field of painting by Cimabue's pupil, Giotto. Niccola Pisano, says Ruskin, "is the Master of Naturalism in Italy,--therefore elsewhere: of Naturalism and all that follows" (_Val d'Arno_, § 16). Well-authenticated pictures by Cimabue are the Madonna panel with angels in the Academy at Florence (formerly in the church of SS. Trinita), and the colossal Madonna still in the Rucellai chapel in S. Maria Novella. The latter is the picture of which the well-known story, referred to below, is told. Our picture, which is also mentioned by Vasari, was originally attached to a pilaster in the choir of S. Croce.[149] Cimabue also executed some of the frescoes in the Upper Church at Assisi: and at the time of his death was occupied on the mosaics in the tribune of the Duomo at Pisa. Copies of Cimabue's frescoes may be seen in the Arundel Society's Collection.