The outlines
were usually pricked, and when finished the cartoon was cut into
convenient sizes for pouncing on the wall or other foundation upon which
the picture was to be painted, unless the artist took the precaution of
putting a plain piece of paper under the original drawing and pricking
both together and transferring the outlines by the aid of the second
sheet. These cut-up cartoons became the property of the whole workshop,
and were used by the pupils when they wished. No doubt the roughness of
this treatment soon destroyed many of them. Vasari, who cannot have seen
the Cartoon of Pisa, gives us a long, enthusiastic description of it,
ending with some helpful notes as to the materials with which it was
drawn, and an account of its effect upon contemporary artists. He
continues: "In addition, you discovered groups of figures sketched in
various methods, some outlined with charcoal, some shaded with lines, some
rubbed in, some heightened with white-lead, the master having sought to
prove his empire over all materials of draughtsmanship.(84) The craftsmen
of design remained therewith astonished and dumbfounded, recognising the
fullest reaches of their art revealed to them by this unrivalled
masterpiece. Those who examined the forms I have described, painters who
inspected and compared them with works hardly less divine, affirm that
never in the history of human achievement was any product of man's brain
seen like to them in mere supremacy.
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