But What Is Surprising Is That In A City So Artistic As Paris
There Should Be So Few Photographs Of This Statue.
I could get but
two - these were duplicates, and were all the proprietor of the shop
possessed; there was some trouble to find them.
I was told that, as they
were so seldom asked for, copies were not kept, and that there was only
this one particular view - a very bad one. Other shops had none. The Venus
of Milo is in every shop - in every size, and from every point of view; of
the Accroupie these two poor representations were hunted out from the
bottom of a portfolio. Of course, these remarks apply only to Paris as
the public know it; doubtless the studios have the Accroupie, and could
supply representations of every kind: casts, too, can be obtained at the
Louvre. But to those who, like myself, wander in the outer darkness of
common barbarian life, the Accroupie is unknown till we happily chance
upon it. Possibly the reason may be that this statue infinitely surpasses
those fixed ideals of art which the studios have for so many centuries
resolutely forced upon the world. It seems that after a certain length of
art study the natural eyesight is lost. But I hope and believe there are
thousands of people in the world in full possession of their natural
eyesight, and capable of appreciating the Accroupie when once their
attention is called to it.
I knew it was useless to search further among the galleries of the
Louvre, for there could not be two such works in existence anywhere, much
less in one collection.
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