If Half A Dozen Young Italians Could Be Got Together With A Taste
For Drawing Like That Shown By The
Authors of the sketches on pp.
136, 137, 138; if they had power to add to their number; if they
Were allowed to see paintings and drawings done up to the year A.D.
1510, and votive pictures and the comic papers; if they were left
with no other assistance than this, absolutely free to please
themselves, and could be persuaded not to try and please any one
else, I believe that in fifty years we should have all that was
ever done repeated with fresh naivete, and as much more
delightfully than even by the best old masters, as these are more
delightful than anything we know of in classic painting. The young
plants keep growing up abundantly every day - look at Bastianini,
dead not ten years since - but they are browsed down by the
academies. I remember there came out a book many years ago with
the title, "What becomes of all the clever little children?" I
never saw the book, but the title is pertinent.
Any man who can write, can draw to a not inconsiderable extent.
Look at the Bayeux tapestry; yet Matilda probably never had a
drawing lesson in her life. See how well prisoner after prisoner
in the Tower of London has cut this or that out in the stone of his
prison wall, without, in all probability, having ever tried his
hand at drawing before.
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