Our Schools And Academies Or
Universities Are Covertly, But Essentially, Radical Institutions
And Abhorrent To The Genius Of Conservatism.
Their sin is the true
radical sin of being in too great a hurry, and of believing in
short cuts too soon.
But it must be remembered that this
proposition, like every other, wants tempering with a slight
infusion of its direct opposite.
I said in an early part of this book that the best test to know
whether or no one likes a picture is to ask one's self whether one
would like to look at it if one was quite sure one was alone. The
best test for a painter as to whether he likes painting his picture
is to ask himself whether he should like to paint it if he was
quite sure that no one except himself, and the few of whom he was
very fond, would ever see it. If he can answer this question in
the affirmative, he is all right; if he cannot, he is all wrong. I
will close these remarks with an illustration which will show how
nearly we can approach the early Florentines even now - when nobody
is looking at us. I do not know who Mr. Pollard is. I never heard
of him till I came across a cheap lithograph of his Funeral of Tom
Moody in the parlour of a village inn. I should not think he ever
was an R.A., but he has approached as nearly as the difference
between the geniuses of the two countries will allow, to the spirit
of the painters who painted in the Campo Santo at Pisa.
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