I At Once Proposed An Exchange, And Have Thus Become
Possessed Of The Two Which I Reproduce Here.
Being pencil
drawings, and not done with a view to Mr. Dawson's process, they
have suffered somewhat in reproduction, but I decided to let them
suffer rather than attempt to copy them.
What can be more
absolutely in the spirit of the fourteenth century than the
drawings given above? They seem as though done by some fourteenth-
century painter who had risen from the dead. And to show that they
are no rare accident, I will give another (p. 138), also done by an
entirely self-taught Italian, and intended to represent the castle
of Laurenzana in the neighbourhood of Potenza.
If the reader will pardon a digression, I will refer to a more
important example of an old master born out of due time. One day,
in the cathedral at Varallo, I saw a picture painted on linen of
which I could make nothing. It was not old and it was not modern.
The expression of the Virgin's face was lovely, and there was more
individuality than is commonly found in modern Italian work.
Modern Italian colour is generally either cold and dirty, or else
staring. The colour here was tender, and reminded me of fifteenth-
century Florentine work. The folds of the drapery were not modern;
there was a sense of effort about them, as though the painter had
tried to do them better, but had been unable to get them as free
and flowing as he had wished.
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