have suffered somewhat in reproduction, but I decided to let them
suffer rather than attempt to copy them. What can be more
absolutely in the spirit of the fourteenth century than the
drawings given above? They seem as though done by some fourteenth-
century painter who had risen from the dead. And to show that they
are no rare accident, I will give another (p. 138), also done by an
entirely self-taught Italian, and intended to represent the castle
of Laurenzana in the neighbourhood of Potenza.

If the reader will pardon a digression, I will refer to a more
important example of an old master born out of due time. One day,
in the cathedral at Varallo, I saw a picture painted on linen of
which I could make nothing. It was not old and it was not modern.
The expression of the Virgin's face was lovely, and there was more
individuality than is commonly found in modern Italian work.
Modern Italian colour is generally either cold and dirty, or else
staring. The colour here was tender, and reminded me of fifteenth-
century Florentine work. The folds of the drapery were not modern;
there was a sense of effort about them, as though the painter had
tried to do them better, but had been unable to get them as free
and flowing as he had wished. Yet the picture was not old; to all
appearance it might have been painted a matter of ten years; nor
again was it an echo--it was a sound: the archaism was not
affected; on the contrary, there was something which said, as
plainly as though the living painter had spoken it, that his
somewhat constrained treatment was due simply to his having been
puzzled with the intricacy of what he saw, and giving as much as he
could with a hand which was less advanced than his judgment. By
some strange law it comes about that the imperfection of men who
are at this stage of any art is the only true perfection; for the