Look back six hundred and forty years, and linger in fancy by the side of the Arno, where Florence in the height of her power and beauty, stood then as now, and you may hear the joy-bells ringing across the swift river for the birth of one of her proudest sons. Thirty years more, and the whole city will rise in procession to honour him, and bear his work in triumph to the quiet church of St. Mary; and six hundred years later, the representation of that honour will hang on the walls of an English gallery; and people will talk, question, and whisper about The Cimabue Procession. They may well admire it and ask its meaning; for to the painter it commemorated we owe the art of England as surely, as that to Leighton we owe the picture which represents the old master's triumph.

In two ways are we indebted to Cimabue for the emancipation of painting; first, for the work which he did himself accomplish; and second and in chief, for his discovery and education of the shepherd boy, whose fame was ultimately to eclipse his own.[27] I say that the master's fame was to be eclipsed by his pupil, but that must be taken with one most important reservation. However much we may be convinced of Giotto's superiority, we are always forced to bear in mind the fact, that had it not been for Cimabue, that superiority would in all probability never have been known. Differing in the particulars of the story, all the accounts of Giotto's early life agree in this important fact, that it was Cimabue who discovered his early talent, who persuaded his father to let him enter his profession, and who educated him as a painter at his own expense, from the time that he was ten years old. Is not this a greater monument to Cimabue's name, than any amount of Madonnas carried in triumph through the "street of gladness?" Rightly understood, is it not even a surer testimony to the fact of his being a true artist; for does it not prove that the painter had more devotion to his art than his fame? To see in a youth, poor and unknown, the signs of genius, greater perhaps than your own, to take him from his obscurity, and to instruct his ignorance, careless of the effect which may be thereby produced upon your own reputation, and finally to stand aside while he wins the honour which is his due, but which nevertheless would have fallen to your share, had it not been for your own action; this seems to me as great a sacrifice of petty pride, and as great a triumph over natural selfishness, as can well be conceived. And this is what Cimabue did, urged by no duty, and without possible reward, save that of doing his best for his art and his pupil. We owe him then a double debt: for his own work in loosening the bonds of tradition, and for the instruction of the artist whose paintings and sculptures were to inaugurate the real methods of art, and extend its province, from the mere exponent of religious legend to the representation of the passions of humanity and the beauty of nature.

What little is known of the life of Cimabue we can give in a very few words. Even Vasari, garrulous as he is, has little more to tell us, than that he lived, painted certain pictures, received certain honours, had a pupil called Giotto, whose fame eclipsed his own, and died.

"In the year 1240 Giovanni Cimabue, of the noble family of that name was born at Florence, to give the first light to the art of painting." Then follows the account of his Greek instruction in the art of painting, which is doubted for various reasons by most modern authorities, chiefly, it appears because Vasari has made him paint in the chapel of the Gondi, which was not built at that time. Crowe and Cavalcaselle however do not give any other explanation of Cimabue's teaching; and Lindsay says he painted in the subterranean church under the instruction of the Greeks; while Lanzi, in the History of Painting, suggests that the paintings of the Greeks who are supposed to have instructed Cimabue, may be seen in the chapels of the old church beneath the sacristy of S. Maria Novella.

The point, however, is of little importance. After painting various works at Florence and Pisa, all of which have now perished, he was invited to help in the decoration of the church at Assisi. According to Vasari, he there painted in both the upper and lower churches, but, with some few exceptions, little of these frescoes remain; and the whole question as to the authorship of the five remaining frescoes in these churches has long been a favourite battle-ground for critics. Vasari, Lanzi, Rumohr, Eastlake, Crowe and Cavalcaselle, and many others having all theories more or less inconsistent with one another. I shall content myself with noticing the chief theories on the subject when I speak later on of the work of Giotto at Assisi. After this, Cimabue returned to Florence, and executed his great panel, the Virgin Enthroned, a picture of colossal size, which was placed in the church of S. Maria Novella; this was the work which was carried through the city by a triumphant procession of the people. "It is further reported, and may be read in certain records of old painters, that whilst Cimabue was painting this picture in a garden near the gate of S. Pietro, King Charles the Elder of Anjou passed through Florence, and the authorities of the city, among other marks of respect, conducted him to see the picture of Cimabue. When this work was thus shown to the King it had not before been seen by any one; wherefore all the men and women of Florence hastened in great crowds to admire it, making all possible demonstrations of delight. The inhabitants of the neighbourhood, rejoicing in this occurrence, ever afterwards called that place Borgo Allegri, and this name it has ever since retained, although in process of time it became enclosed within the walls of the city."[28]

Vasari has little to tell us of the incidents of Cimabue's life, nor can I find any other records likely to be authentic, which have fuller details. In a short time after the execution of this Madonna, the artist was appointed to superintend the building of Santa Maria del Fiore, in conjunction with a celebrated architect, Arnolfo Lapo, and he died, whilst the building was still unfinished, at the age of sixty.[29] If he adopted Giotto in 1286, i.e. when the latter was ten years of age (the time given by most of the authorities), his pupil must, according to the time given by Cennini, have just finished his novitiate when his master died; as, in his treatise on painting, that author gives thirteen years as the time in which the art of painting can be acquired. As it may well be that amongst my readers there be some who are desirous of knowing the shortest time in which it is possible to learn to paint, I will quote the words of the treatise. They may perchance aid amateurs to think a little more justly of what the mechanical difficulties of painting were, even in the rude days of early pre-Raphaelitism:—

"Know that you cannot learn to paint in less time than that which I shall name to you. In the first place you must study drawing for at least one year, then you must remain with a master at the workshop for the space of six years, at least, that you may learn all the parts and members of the art; to grind colours, to boil down glues, to grind plaster (gesso), to acquire the practice of laying grounds on pictures, to work in relief, and to scrape (or smooth) the surface, and to gild; afterwards to practise colouring, to adorn with mordants, paint cloths of gold, and paint on walls for six more years, drawing without intermission on holy days and work days. And by this means you will acquire great experience. If you do otherwise you will never attain perfection. There are many who say you may learn the art without the assistance of a master. Do not believe them; let this book be an example to you, studying it day and night. And if you do not study under some master, you will never be fit for anything; nor will you be able to show your face among the masters."

There is another curious statement about Cimabue, and one which is very significant of his intense care for the best interests of art; it occurs in an MS. commentary upon Dante, called the Anonimo, and was written while Giotto was still living, that is before 1330.[30] The author says:—"Cimabue of Florence, a painter of the time of our author (i.e. Dante) knew more of the noble art (that of painting) than any other man, but he was so arrogant and proud withal, that if any one discovered a fault in his work, or if he perceived one himself (as will often happen to the artist who fails from the defects in the material that he uses, or from insufficiency of the instrument with which he works), he would instantly destroy that work, however costly it might be." There could be no surer testimony to the light in which Cimabue regarded his painting than this of the old Florentine commentator's, and it is amusing to see how, six hundred years ago, artists were liable to exactly the same amount of mistaken blame and misapprehension as they are to-day. [It is not six months ago since I heard one of the greatest of our living painters severely censured, because he would not part with a portrait which did not come up to his standard of good work, and though the opinion was expressed in the choicest slang of the nineteenth century, it was almost an exact equivalent for the words of the author Anonimo; for I suppose "he did it for swagger," really means much the same as "proud and arrogant."]

The changes introduced by Cimabue into the conventional representations of religious subjects were numerous, and though each slight in itself, formed, when taken as a whole, a very marked progression from the Byzantine manner, but whether owing to respect for his early masters, or from the almost overpowering effect of Church tradition, the artist never wholly succeeded in shaking off the established forms of painting in the general arrangement of his figures and backgrounds.

If we compare his great picture in S. Maria Novella with one of a similar subject by Guido of Siena, his predecessor,[31] in the Church of S. Domenico at Siena, we shall find that the main lines of the composition are much the same. Nevertheless the advance is very clearly marked. The folds of the drapery have lost much of the stiffness and angularity, and the attitude and expression of the Virgin, though still wanting life and energy, are simple and comparatively natural. A still greater improvement may be noticed in the gestures of the angels which support the throne, and in the action of the child Saviour on the Virgin's lap. In this picture there is, I think, a direct contradiction to the assertion of Crowe[32] that "in the flow of his drapery Cimabue made no sensible progress;"[33] though in other respects that author does full justice to the improvements introduced by the artist. Many other modifications of style are noticeable in Cimabue's works, especially the manner in which he abandoned what we may call the mosaic-like manner of painting, which had been in use for so long a time, and blended one colour with another instead of leaving it as a bright patch, divided by a sharp line. Much of his colour has either faded or disappeared entirely, but enough is left to show that it must have been originally very rich in hue, and though of a deep tone, free from the heaviness and obscurity which was so prevalent in the work of the Byzantine artists. In the Enthroned Madonna of the Lower Church at Assisi, which is indisputably one of his works, the colouring is far richer and deeper than anything remaining of Giotto's, though it does not possess the exquisite clearness and delicacy of the latter; and is comparatively monotonous. This picture has however suffered so severely from damp, that it cannot be judged fair to say what the colour has, or has not, been, though it is still beautiful, and fortunately unrestored.[34]

In the Accademia of Florence there is another colossal Madonna by Cimabue, also an altar-piece representing the same subject as that of the one in S. Maria Novella, the arrangement, however, being slightly different. Instead of the six guardian angels who support the chair on which the Virgin is seated (in the former picture), there are here eight, and beneath the throne in niches stand four prophets; the thirty medallions of saints which surround the frame in the former picture are here absent. I am unable to give an accurate description of the differences between these two pictures, as I have only studied the one in the Accademia;[35] but there is, according to Crowe and Cavalcaselle, "a more obstinate maintenance of the old types" in the latter picture: and it is certainly true, from my own observation, that the colour has sustained such injuries from restoration and time, as to be almost entirely destroyed. This picture was originally of the gable form, but some ingenious artist, who considered that an unpleasant shape for a picture, has supplied the two triangular pieces necessary to complete the oblong, and painted thereon two cherubim, as poor in conception, colour, and execution as could well be imagined. The old shape of the work is still clearly visible, and in any other country than Italy would be at once restored.[36]