Note 188 — Chapter I · (XV.)

It is characteristically Florentine to regard painting as essentially the filling up of outlines, and to colour in staccato fashion with an assorted set of tints arranged in gradation. To the eye of the born painter outlines do not exist and nature is seen in tone and colour, while colours are like the tones of a violin infinite in gradation, not distinct like the notes of a piano. With the exception of the Venetians and some other North Italians such as Correggio and Lotto, the Italians generally painted by filling outlines with local tints graded as light, middle, and dark, and the Florentines were pre-eminent in the emphasis they laid on the well-drawn outline as the foundation of the art. Since the seventeenth century the general idea of what constitutes the art of painting has suffered a change and Vasari’s account of Florentine practice, in which he was himself an expert, is all the more interesting. Vasari’s point of view is that of the frescoist. In that process, which, as we shall see, had to be carried out swiftly and directly so as to be finished at one sitting, it was practically necessary to have the various tints in their gradations mixed and ready to hand. The whole method and genius of oil painting, as moderns understand it, is different, and its processes much more varied and subtle.