"Yes, The Old Masters Often Drew Badly; They Did Not
Care Much For Truth And Exactness In Minor Details;
But
After all, in spite of bad drawing, bad perspective,
bad proportions, and a choice of subjects which no longer
appeal
To people as strongly as they did three hundred
years ago, there is a SOMETHING about their pictures
which is divine - a something which is above and beyond
the art of any epoch since - a something which would be
the despair of artists but that they never hope or expect
to attain it, and therefore do not worry about it."
That is what he said - and he said what he believed;
and not only believed, but felt.
Reasoning - especially reasoning, without technical
knowledge - must be put aside, in cases of this kind.
It cannot assist the inquirer. It will lead him,
in the most logical progression, to what, in the eyes
of artists, would be a most illogical conclusion.
Thus: bad drawing, bad proportion, bad perspective,
indifference to truthful detail, color which gets its
merit from time, and not from the artist - these things
constitute the Old Master; conclusion, the Old Master
was a bad painter, the Old Master was not an Old Master
at all, but an Old Apprentice. Your friend the artist
will grant your premises, but deny your conclusion;
he will maintain that notwithstanding this formidable
list of confessed defects, there is still a something
that is divine and unapproachable about the Old Master,
and that there is no arguing the fact away by any system of
reasoning whatsoever.
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