And even Cimabue did not venture to leave the sphere of conventionally reverenced dignity. He still painted--though beautifully--only the Madonna, and the St. Joseph, and the Christ. These he made living--Florence asked no more: and 'Credette Cimabue nella pintura tener lo campo.' But Giotto came from the field; and saw with his simple eyes a lowlier worth. And he painted the Madonna, and St. Joseph, and the Christ,--yes, by all means, if you choose to call them so, but essentially,--Mamma, Papa, and the Baby. And all Italy threw up its cap--'ora ha Giotto il grido' (now Giotto has the cry)." A fourth development which the art of painting owes to Giotto may be well seen in this picture. Notice the pretty passages of _colour_, as, for instance, in the dresses of the angels. "The Greeks had painted anything anyhow,--gods black, horses red, lips and cheeks white; and when the Etruscan vase expanded into a Cimabue picture, or a Tafi mosaic, still--except that the Madonna was to have a blue dress, and everything else as much gold on it as could be managed--there was very little advance in notions of colour. Suddenly Giotto threw aside all the glitter, and all the conventionalism; and declared that he saw the sky blue, the tablecloth white, and angels, when he dreamed of them, rosy. And he simply founded the schools of colour in Italy" (_Mornings in Florence_, pt. ii.). 569. AN ALTAR-PIECE. _Orcagna_ (Florentine: about 1308-1386). "From the time of Giotto to the end of the 14th century Orcagna stands quite pre-eminent even among the many excellent artists of that time. In sculpture he was a pupil of Andrea Pisano; in painting, though indirectly, a disciple of Giotto. Few artists have practised with such success so many branches of the arts. Orcagna was not only a painter and a sculptor, but also a worker in mosaic, an architect and a poet. His importance in the history of Italian art rests not merely on his numerous and beautiful productions, but also on his widespread influence, transmitted to his successors through a large and carefully trained school of pupils. In style as a painter Orcagna comes midway between Giotto and Fra Angelico; he combined the dramatic force and realistic vigour of the earlier painting with the pure brilliant colour and refined unearthly beauty of Fra Angelico. His large fresco paintings are works of extreme decorative beauty and splendour, composed with careful reference to their architectural surroundings" (Middleton). His real name was Andrea di Cione, but he was called by his contemporaries Orcagna, a corruption of Arcagnuolo, the Archangel. "An intense solemnity and energy in the sublimest groups of his figures, fading away as he touches inferior subjects, indicates that his home was among the _archangels_, and his rank among the first of the sons