Bernhard Berenson

• Berlin.
  
  • Von Kaufmann Collection. Head of female Saint.
• Florence.
  
  • Bargello. 139. Angel playing Viol.
  • Or San Michele. Tabernacle. Finished 1359.

• Agram (Croatia).
  
  • Strossmayer Collection: Albertinelli, Fra Angelico, Bugiardini, Cosimo Rosselli.
• Aix-en-Provence.
  
  • Musée: Alunno di Domenico.
• Altenburg.
  
  • Lindenau Museum: Amico di Sandro, Fra Angelico, Lorenzo Monaco, Mainardi, Pesellino, Pier Francesco Fiorentino, Sellajo.
• Amsterdam.
  
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It is a temptation to hasten on from Pollaiuolo and Verrocchio to Botticelli and Leonardo, to men of genius as artists reappearing again after two generations, men who accomplished with scarcely an effort what their precursors had been toiling after.

Values of touch and movement, we remember, are the specifically artistic qualities in figure painting (at least, as practised by the Florentines), for it is through them chiefly that painting directly heightens life.

• Assisi.
  
  • S. Francesco, Lower Church, R. Transept. Frescoes: Eight Scenes from the Childhood of Christ.
• Berlin.
  
  • 1074a. Crucifixion.
• Florence.
  
  • Bargello Chapel. Fresco: Paradise (?). (Cf. also under B for assistance rendered by C.)

At the risk of seeming to wander off into the boundless domain of æsthetics, we must stop at this point for a moment to make sure that we are of one mind regarding the meaning of the phrase “artistic pleasure,” in so far at least as it is used in connection with painting.

What is the point at which ordinary pleasures pass over into the specific pleasures derived from each one of the arts? Our judgment about the merits of any given work of art depends to a large extent upon our answer to this question.

To distinguish clearly, after the lapse of nearly five centuries, between Uccello and Castagno, and to determine the precise share each had in the formation of the Florentine school, is already a task fraught with difficulties. The scantiness of his remaining works makes it more than difficult, makes it almost impossible, to come to accurate conclusions regarding the character and influence of their somewhat younger contemporary, Domenico Veneziano.