"`Yonder's a work, now, of that famous youth', etc.

"In Andrea del Sarto," says Vasari, "art and nature combined to show
all that may be done in painting, where design, coloring, and invention
unite in one and the same person. Had this master possessed
a somewhat bolder and more elevated mind, had he been
as much distinguished for higher qualifications as he was for genius
and depth of judgment in the art he practised, he would,
beyond all doubt, have been without an equal. But there was
a certain timidity of mind, a sort of diffidence and want of force
in his nature, which rendered it impossible that those evidences
of ardor and animation which are proper to the more exalted character,
should ever appear in him; nor did he at any time display
one particle of that elevation which, could it but have been added to
the advantages wherewith he was endowed, would have rendered him
a truly divine painter: wherefore the works of Andrea are wanting
in those ornaments of grandeur, richness, and force,
which appear so conspicuously in those of many other masters.
His figures are, nevertheless, well drawn, they are entirely
free from errors, and perfect in all their proportions,
and are for the most part simple and chaste: the expression
of his heads is natural and graceful in women and children,
while in youths and old men it is full of life and animation.
The draperies of this master are beautiful to a marvel,
and the nude figures are admirably executed, the drawing is simple,
the coloring is most exquisite, nay, it is truly divine."


Mr. Ernest Radford, quoting this passage, in the Browning Society's
`Illustrations to Browning's Poems', remarks that "nearly the whole