works of almost supreme art, which, but for our readiness to believe in
the manifold possibilities of Florentine genius, we should with
exceeding difficulty accept as their creation--so little do they seem to
result from their conscious striving. Alessio's attention being largely
devoted to problems of vehicle--to the side of painting which is
scarcely superior to cookery--he had time for little else, although that
spare time he gave to the study of landscape, in the rendering of which
he was among the innovators. Andrea and Antonio set themselves the much
worthier task of increasing on every side the effectiveness of the
figure arts, of which, sculpture no less than painting, they aimed to be
masters.

[Page heading: POLLAIUOLO AND VERROCCHIO]

To confine ourselves, however, as closely as we may to painting, and
leaving aside for the present the question of colour, which, as I have
already said, is, in Florentine art, of entirely subordinate importance,
there were three directions in which painting as Pollaiuolo and
Verrocchio found it had greatly to advance before it could attain its
maximum of effectiveness: landscape, movement, and the nude. Giotto had
attempted none of these. The nude, of course, he scarcely touched;
movement he suggested admirably, but never rendered; and in landscape
he was satisfied with indications hardly more than symbolical, although
quite adequate to his purpose, which was to confine himself to the human
figure. In all directions Masaccio made immense progress, guided by his
never failing sense for material significance, which, as it led him to
render the tactile values of each figure separately, compelled him also
to render the tactile values of groups as wholes, and of their landscape
surroundings--by preference, hills so shaped as readily to stimulate the
tactile imagination. For what he accomplished in the nude and in