is not without humour.  Sculpture, indeed, had no reason to ape or imitate painting.  Sculpture, in fact, was in advance of painting during the first half of the fifteenth century.  Donatello, Luca della Robbia, Jacopo della Quercia, and Ghiberti were greater men in sculpture than their contemporaries in painting.  The arts were in rivalry; the claim for precedence was zealously canvassed.  The sculptors claimed superiority because their art was older, because statuary has more points of view than one.  You can walk round it, while a picture has only one light and one view.  Moreover, the argument of utility applies most to sculpture, which can be used for tombs, columns, fountains, caryatides, &c.  Sculpture has finality, for, though it takes longer to make, it cannot be constantly altered like a picture.  While all arts try to imitate nature, sculpture gives the actual form, but painting only its semblance.  A man born blind has a sense of touch which gives him pleasure from sculpture, which is better suited to theology, which has greater durability, and so forth.  The painter replied that, if a statue has more than one point of view, a picture containing many figures can give even greater variety.  Then the argument of utility denies the essence of art, which is to imitate nature, not to adorn brackets and pilasters; but even if decoration be an end in itself, painting can be used where sculpture would be too heavy.  The painter continues that his art requires higher training in such things as atmosphere and perspective.  As to the greater durability of sculpture, the material and not the art is responsible; but, in any case, painting lasts long enough to be worth achieving.  Finally, sculpture cannot always imitate nature:  the sense of colour can make a sunset, a storm at sea, moonlight, landscape and human emotions, which are best translated by varying colour and light.  The controversy is unsettled to this day.[176] The wise man, like Donatello, selected his art and never overstepped the boundary.

[Footnote 171:  “Life of Henry VII.,” ed. 1825, iii. 417.]

[Footnote 172:  See Westmacott’s lectures on Sculpture, II.  III., Athenaeum, 1858.]

[Footnote 173:  2nd Comm.  Vasari, I. xxx.]

[Footnote 174:  Letter of 1739, p. 186.]

[Footnote 175:  17, viii. 1549, Antonio Doni, printed in Bottari, iii. 341.]

[Footnote 176:  These dialogues will be found at great length in Borghini, Vasari, Leonardo da Vinci, Alberti, &c.  Castiglione also devotes a canto of the “Cortegiano” to the subject.]

* * * * *

[Illustration:  Alinari

JUDITH

LOGGIA DEI LANZI, FLORENCE]

[Sidenote:  The Judith.]