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Updated: June 8, 2025
And since he began to have a good knowledge of light and shade, seeing that he worked in relief, he made many difficult foreshortenings very well, as is seen in that beggar who is seeking alms from S. Peter; for his leg, which is trailing behind him, is so well proportioned in its outlines, with regard to draughtsmanship, and in its shadows, with regard to colouring, that it appears to be really piercing the wall.
By his hand is a Resurrection of Christ to be seen at the upper end of the cloister of the Grazie, with some very beautiful foreshortenings; and a chapel in fresco in S. Francesco, containing the deaths of S. Peter and S. Paul.
Magical foreshortenings and wonderful effects of color appear to be purely incidental to the expression of a great idea. I left this painting as one should leave the work of a great religious master thinking more of Jesus and of John than of Rubens. After this we went through many galleries and churches devoted to his works; for Antwerp is Rubens's shrine.
Unlike Raphael, who was working in the neighbouring stanze, and who was contented to pass, and some would have us believe to execute, ill-turned foreshortenings and false drawing, so long as his general effect was preserved and the work done in reasonable time.
But it will be some years before the beginner has got his eye trained to such accuracy of observation that he can dispense with it. In the case of foreshortenings, the eye, unaided by this blocking out, is always apt to be led astray. And here the observation of the shape of the background against the object will be of great assistance.
Very beautiful and difficult, likewise, are the foreshortenings in the figures of those who, having removed Him from the Cross, support Him with some bands, standing on some ladders and revealing in certain parts the nude flesh, executed with much grace.
This altar-piece, which remained unfinished, was taken after the death of Domenico to the Great Hospital and placed at the top of some steps near the high-altar, where it is still regarded with marvel on account of some very beautiful foreshortenings in the nudes.
Even those who are not connoisseurs can see that these frescos are painted by rule, that the artist, having stocked his memory with a certain set of forms, is making use of them to fill out his tableau; that he wantonly multiplies queer attitudes and ingenious foreshortenings; that the lively invention, the grand outburst of feeling, the perfect truth, by which his earlier works are distinguished, have disappeared; and that, if he is still superior to all others, he is nevertheless inferior to himself.
And although Paolo Uccello had tried his hand at this, and had done something, solving this difficulty to some extent, yet Masaccio, introducing many new methods, made foreshortenings from every point of view much better than any other who had lived up to that time.
His memory is like one of those historical paintings, where Virgil and Dante sit side by side conversing. These perspectives and foreshortenings are a great barrier between peoples. It is ever so difficult for a person of one tradition to remember what is contemporary in the tradition of another.
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