(_αα_) It is here before all we must draw attention to the great influence which Giotto and his pupils exercised. Giotto, along with the changes he effected in respect to modes of conception and composition, brought about a reform in the art of preparing colours. The later Greeks probably, such at least is the result of chemical analysis, made use of wax either as a medium of colour, or as a kind of varnish[346], and from this we get the yellow-green and obscure general tone, which is not sufficiently explained by the action of lamplight[347]. Giotto wholly dispensed with this glutinous medium of the Greek painters, and used instead, when preparing his colours[348], the clarified milk of young shoots, unripe figs, and other less oliginous limes[349], which Italian painters of the early Middle Ages had used, very likely even before they strenuously imitated the Byzantines[350]. A medium of this kind had no darkening effect on the colours, but left their luminosity and clarity unimpaired. Still more important was the reform effected by Giotto in Italian painting with respect to selection of subjects and their manner of presentment. Ghiberti himself praises Giotto for having abandoned the rude style of the Greeks, and without leaning in this direction to an excess having introduced the truth and grace of Nature. Boccaccio, too, says of him that Nature is unable to create anything that Giotto could not imitate to the point of deception[351]. In Byzantine pictures we can hardly detect a trace of natural appearance. It was Giotto, then, who concentrated his attention on what is present and actual, and compared the forms and effects which he undertook to exhibit with Life as it existed around him. And we may associate with this tendency the fact that during the times of Giotto not only do we find that the state of society was more free and intent on enjoyment, but that the veneration of several later saints took its rise then, saints whose lives more or less fell in that period[352]. It was such Giotto utilized particularly in emphasizing the truthful presentment of the subjects of his art; there was, in fact, thus the further demand suggested by the content itself that he should bring into prominence the natural features of the bodily presence and exhibit more defined characterization, action, passion, situation, pose, and movement. What we find, however, to a relative degree disappears from this attempt is that imposing religious seriousness which is the fundamental characteristic of the phase of art which it followed[353]. The things of the world receive a stage and a wider opportunity for expression; and this is illustrated by the way Giotto, under the influence of his age, found room for burlesque along with so much that was pathetic. In this connection Herr von Rumohr states rightly, "Under conditions of this description I am at a loss to understand how certain critics, who have exclusively insisted on this feature of Giotto's work, can so