"That was really my ignorance," said Dorothea, admiring

Will's good-humor. "I must have said so only because I never could see

any beauty in the pictures which my uncle told me all judges thought

very fine. And I have gone about with just the same ignorance in Rome.

There are comparatively few paintings that I can really enjoy. At

first when I enter a room where the walls are covered with frescos, or

with rare pictures, I feel a kind of awe--like a child present at great

ceremonies where there are grand robes and processions; I feel myself

in the presence of some higher life than my own. But when I begin to

examine the pictures one by one the life goes out of them, or else is

something violent and strange to me. It must be my own dulness. I am

seeing so much all at once, and not understanding half of it. That

always makes one feel stupid. It is painful to be told that anything

is very fine and not be able to feel that it is fine--something like

being blind, while people talk of the sky."

"Oh, there is a great deal in the feeling for art which must be

acquired," said Will. (It was impossible now to doubt the directness

of Dorothea's confession.) "Art is an old language with a great many

artificial affected styles, and sometimes the chief pleasure one gets

out of knowing them is the mere sense of knowing. I enjoy the art of

all sorts here immensely; but I suppose if I could pick my enjoyment to

pieces I should find it made up of many different threads. There is

something in daubing a little one's self, and having an idea of the

process."

"You mean perhaps to be a painter?" said Dorothea, with a new direction

of interest. "You mean to make painting your profession? Mr. Casaubon

will like to hear that you have chosen a profession."

"No, oh no," said Will, with some coldness. "I have quite made up my

mind against it. It is too one-sided a life. I have been seeing a

great deal of the German artists here: I travelled from Frankfort with

one of them. Some are fine, even brilliant fellows--but I should not

like to get into their way of looking at the world entirely from the

studio point of view."

"That I can understand," said Dorothea, cordially. "And in Rome it

seems as if there were so many things which are more wanted in the

world than pictures. But if you have a genius for painting, would it

not be right to take that as a guide? Perhaps you might do better

things than these--or different, so that there might not be so many

pictures almost all alike in the same place."




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