"Myths and symbols always mark the dawn of a religion, incarnation and
realism its full growth." So after a time when the first vague wonder
and ecstasy are over, symbols no longer content people; they want to
bring religion home to them in a more tangible form, to humanize it, in
fact. From this want it arises that nature next to religion inspires
art, and finally takes its place. For it follows as a matter of course
that as art is a realistic interpreter of the spiritual, so it is more
easy to follow nature than spirituality, nature being the outward or
realistic expression of the mind of God.

It was a saying of Buffalmacco, who was _not_ one of the most
devout painters of the fourteenth century, "Do not let us think of
anything but to cover our walls with saints, and out of disrespect to
the demons to make men more devout." And Savonarola, though he has been
accused of being one of the causes of the decline, thus upheld the
sacred influences of art; when he exclaimed in one of his fervent
bursts of eloquence, "You see that Saint there in the Church and say,
'I will live a good life and be like him.'" If these were the feelings
of the least devout and the religious fanatic, how hallowed must the
influences of Christian painting have been to the intermediate ranks.
Mr. Symonds beautifully expresses the tendency of that time: "The eyes
of the worshipper should no longer have a mere stock or stone to
contemplate; his imagination should be helped by the dogmatic
presentation of the scenes of sacred history, and his devotion
quickened by lively images of the passion of our Lord.... The body and
soul moreover should be reconciled, and God's likeness should be once
more acknowledged in the features and limbs of men." [Footnote:
Symonds' _Renaissance of the Fine Arts_, chap. i. p. 11.]