Art had to go through a toilsome period of geometrical and anatomical pedantry, before it could venture, in the frescoes of Michael Angelo and Raphael, to return with greater wealth of knowledge on a higher level to the divine simplicity of its childhood in Giotto.
In the drawing of the figure Giotto was surpassed by many meaner artists of the fifteenth century.

Nor had he that quality of genius which selects a high type of beauty, and is scrupulous to shun the commonplace.

The faces of even his most sacred personages are often almost vulgar.

In his choice of models for saints and apostles we already trace the Florentine instinct for contemporary portraiture.

Yet, though his knowledge of anatomy was defective, and his taste was realistic, Giotto solved the great problem of figurative art far better than more learned and fastidious painters.