Probably this stupendous skilfulness has damaged us somewhat. Ever since painting became technically unsurpassable, ever since anatomy became a science, the 'afterborns' have been numbed, petrified by their very appreciation of the accomplished facts. None but those who have tried it know the difficulties of technique, the handicraft; but admiration of genius ought not to stultify effort in the new work that lies under our hand - it is like being so amazed at the powers of Homer that we will not write any new books.

Indeed, so necessary is it that art should be the spontaneous product of its own time, that we may be sometimes tempted to wish that there had never been any 'old masters,' so fully has their skill nipped all future originality, and so often has their position been made a throne for servile incapacity. The great picture galleries have paralysed the Italian painting of the nineteenth century. Hogarth felt this about his own age: he says, among his pithy remarks on the new Royal Academy, 'I am told that one of their leading objects will be, sending young men abroad to study the antique statues, for such kind of studies may sometimes improve an exalted genius, but they will not create it; and whatever has been the cause, this same travelling to Italy has, in several instances that I have seen, seduced the student from nature and led him to paint marble figures, in which he has availed himself of the great works of antiquity, as a cozvard does when he puts on the armour of an Alexander, for with similar pretensions and similar vanity the painter supposes he shall be adored as a second Raphael Urbino.'

True: the great masters have been destructive by their greatness, as a big tree is destructive of the grass blades beneath its arms. Even Reynolds was blinded; 'Study' (he says) 'the great works of the great masters for ever. Study nature attentively, but always with those masters in your company; consider them as models which you are to imitate,' etc.

Had this been right reasoning and healthy truth, Giotto would never have reformed art, for he had no old masters to cling to. No one can learn to walk till he quits hold of the guide. The much-lauded old masters were robust, bold, feeling their feet, looking frankly about them. They formed their own manner and technique. They painted what they saw, felt, and heard in their own way; but they did not sit apart sneering, it is more probable that they talked, explained and proved their meaning to crowds of pupils, They were prized, because, as Emerson says, 'we love those who tell us what we know -' that teaches us to know it.

The priest must educate his flock; he will do it, never by scolding and sneering at the flock, but by drawing it nearer, using it to what is good for it. Art is for the people, and the people maintain their priest.