somehow to stimulate our tactile imagination. We shall understand this
without difficulty if we cover with the same glance two pictures of
nearly the same subject that hang side by side in the Florence Academy,
one by "Cimabue," and the other by Giotto. The difference is striking,
but it does not consist so much in a difference of pattern and types, as
of realisation. In the "Cimabue" we patiently decipher the lines and
colours, and we conclude at last that they were intended to represent a
woman seated, men and angels standing by or kneeling. To recognise these
representations we have had to make many times the effort that the
actual objects would have required, and in consequence our feeling of
capacity has not only not been confirmed, but actually put in question.
With what sense of relief, of rapidly rising vitality, we turn to the
Giotto! Our eyes scarcely have had time to light on it before we realise
it completely--the throne occupying a real space, the Virgin
satisfactorily seated upon it, the angels grouped in rows about it. Our
tactile imagination is put to play immediately. Our palms and fingers
accompany our eyes much more quickly than in presence of real objects,
the sensations varying constantly with the various projections
represented, as of face, torso, knees; confirming in every way our
feeling of capacity for coping with things,--for life, in short. I care
little that the picture endowed with the gift of evoking such feelings
has faults, that the types represented do not correspond to my ideal of
beauty, that the figures are too massive, and almost unarticulated; I
forgive them all, because I have much better to do than to dwell upon
faults.

But how does Giotto accomplish this miracle? With the simplest means,
with almost rudimentary light and shade, and functional line, he
contrives to render, out of all the possible outlines, out of all the
possible variations of light and shade that a given figure may have,