In My Own Defense Let Me Say, However, That This Fatal Indiscretion
Was Committed Before I Had Completed My Art Education.
It was
after we had gone from France to Germany, and to Austria, and to
Italy, that I learned
The great lesson about art - which is that
whenever and wherever you meet a picture that seems to you reasonably
lifelike it is nine times in ten of no consequence whatsoever;
and, unless you are willing to be regarded as a mere ignoramus,
you should straightway leave it and go and find some ancient picture
of a group of overdressed clothing dummies masquerading as angels
or martyrs, and stand before that one and carry on regardless.
When in doubt, look up a picture of Saint Sebastian. You never
experience any difficulty in finding him - he is always represented
as wearing very few clothes, being shot full of arrows to such an
extent that clothes would not fit him anyway. Or else seek out
Saint Laurence, who is invariably featured in connection with a
gridiron; or Saint Bartholomew, who, you remember, achieved
canonization through a process of flaying, and is therefore shown
with his skin folded neatly and carried over his arm like a spring
overcoat.
Following this routine you make no mistakes. Everybody is bound
to accept you as one possessing a deep knowledge of art, and not
mere surface art either, but the innermost meanings and conceptions
of art. Only sometimes I did get to wishing that the Old Masters
had left a little more to the imagination.
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