Not
the antique alone but the natural were being pried into by the spirit
of inquiry. Botany, geology, astronomy, chemistry, medicine, anatomy,
law, literature--nothing seemed to escape the keen eye of the time.
Knowledge was being accumulated from every source, and the arts were
all reflecting it.
The influence of the newly discovered classic marbles upon painting
was not so great as is usually supposed. The painters studied them,
but did not imitate them. Occasionally in such men as Botticelli and
Mantegna we see a following of sculpturesque example--a taking of
details and even of whole figures--but the general effect of the
antique marbles was to impress the painters with the idea that nature
was at the bottom of it all. They turned to the earth not only to
study form and feature, but to learn perspective, light, shadow,
color--in short, the technical features of art. True, religion was the
chief subject, but nature and the antique were used to give it
setting. All the fifteenth-century painting shows nature study, force,
character, sincerity; but it does not show elegance, grace, or the
full complement of color.
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