Preface


The cordial reception of "Turrets, Towers, and Temples" has encouraged
me to hope that a welcome may be given to a book treating the
masterpieces of painting in a similar manner.

Great writers and literary tourists have occasionally been inspired to
record the impressions of their saunterings among galleries and museums.
The most interesting of these, not necessarily professional, I have
tried to bring together in the following pages. My object has been not
to make a selection of the greatest pictures in the world, although many
that have that reputation will be found here, but rather to bring
together those that have produced a powerful impression on great minds.
Consequently, when the reader is disturbed at the omission of some
world-famous painting, I beg him to remember my plan and blame the great
writers instead of me for neglecting his favourite.

My task has not been a light one. A few words of rapturous admiration
are constantly to be met with in the pages of art-lovers, but a
sympathetic study of a single work is rarely found. General comment of a
given artist's work is also plentiful, while discriminating praise of
individual canvases is scanty. The literary selection has, therefore,
involved a great deal of research.