It must be remembered that with the attempt to master the intricacies and gradation of light and shade, came also the use of secondary and tertiary tints, to an extent unknown in the time of Giotto, who may almost be described as the last of the pure colourists, taking pure in the sense of primary. Chiaroscuro went on gradually advancing in importance, relatively to colour and subject, till in the times of Rembrandt we find it absolutely thrusting colour and subject out of the field altogether, and making the flash upon a tin pannikin, or the obscurity of a cottage kitchen, of equal importance with the grandest traditions of our race.
What is perhaps best known as the special quality of Giotto's art is his study of nature; and it is right that I should say a few words upon this somewhat indefinite phrase, and try to show in what Giotto's study of nature consisted, and wherein it differed from that of preceding painters.
If we were able to return in reality to the old times when our painter lived, I do not fancy we should find--as many good people suppose--that the folk of that day were ignorant that there were such things as domesticated animals and birds, trees and flowers, clouds and sunsets. You may be very sure that mediæval Florentines on the ridge of Fiesole, have often paused to watch the sun gilding the spires of Florence, much as the English traveller does; and young lovers wandering idly amongst the almond-trees by the Arno, plucked the blossoms, and admired their loveliness, as we do to-day. It was only that somehow the idea had never occurred to any one that these things were suitable for pictures; there was a notion that it would be a sort of irreverence to put such vulgar details into religious scenes--arising perhaps from a similar feeling to that which makes many well-trained Christians dislike to pray for any specially desired object. Perhaps it was owing to Giotto's early training, or rather no training, in the midst of a wild mountain country, perhaps only to his rough humorous, anti-reverential character, but probably to the combination of circumstance and individuality, that made him introduce into his compositions all sorts of extraneous matter. That to the last he entertained a strong sympathy with his early shepherd life, it is impossible to doubt, and in the designs for the decoration of the base of the Campanile, only two of which he lived to execute with his own hand, there is a singularly beautiful bas-relief, illustrating the pastoral life, in which the sheep, and the puppy watching them, are as fine as anything we have from his hand.