_Rubens._




EFFECTS OF TIME ON PAINTING


XCIX

The only way to judge of the treasures the Old Masters of whatever age
have left us--whether in architecture, sculpture, or painting--with any
hope of sound deduction, is to look at the work and ask oneself--"What
was that like when it was new?" The Elgin Marbles are allowed by common
consent to be the perfection of art. But how much of our feeling of
reverence is inspired by time? Imagine the Parthenon as it must have
looked with the frieze of the mighty Phidias fresh from the chisel.
Could one behold it in all its pristine beauty and splendour we should
see a white marble building, blinding in the dazzling brightness of a
southern sun, the figures of the exquisite frieze in all probability
painted--there is more than a suspicion of that--and the whole standing
out against the intense blue sky; and many of us, I venture to think,
would cry at once, "How excessively crude." No; Time and Varnish are two
of the greatest of Old Masters, and their merits and virtues are too
often attributed by critics--I do not of course allude to the
professional art-critics--to the painters of the pictures they have
toned and mellowed. The great artists all painted in _bright_ colours,
such as it is the fashion nowadays for men to decry as crude and vulgar,
never suspecting that what they applaud in those works is merely the