and sculptors who formed their taste and learned their art, by studying his works; among those, he names Michael Angelo, Lionardo da Vinci, Pietro Perugino, Raffaelle, Bartolomeo, Andrea del Sarto, Il Rosso, and Pierino del Vaga.” Vol. II. p. 95.
Sir Joshua here again halts between two opinions. He tells us the names of the painters who formed themselves upon Masaccio’s style: he does not tell us on whom he formed himself. At one time the natural faculties of his mind were as remarkable as his industry; at another he was only a signal instance of what well-directed diligence will do in a short time. Then again “he appears to have been the first who discovered the path that leads to every excellence to which the Art afterwards arrived,” though he is introduced in an argument to shew that “the daily food and nourishment of the mind of the Artist must be found in the works of his predecessors.” There is something surely very wavering and unsatisfactory in all this.
Sir Joshua, in another part of his work, endeavours to reconcile and prop up these contradictions by a paradoxical sophism which I think turns upon himself. He says, “I am on the contrary persuaded, that by imitation only” (by which he has just explained himself to mean
