The closer you look, the more minutely true the
picture is found to be, and I doubt if even the microscope could see
beyond the painter's touch. Gerard Dow seems to be the master among
these queer magicians. A straw mat, in one of his pictures, is the most
miraculous thing that human art has yet accomplished; and there is a
metal vase, with a dent in it, that is absolutely more real than reality.
These painters accomplish all they aim at,--a praise, methinks, which can
be given to no other men since the world began. They must have laid down
their brushes with perfect satisfaction, knowing that each one of their
million touches had been necessary to the effect, and that there was not
one too few nor too many. And it is strange how spiritual and suggestive
the commonest household article--an earthen pitcher, for example--
becomes, when represented with entire accuracy. These Dutchmen got at
the soul of common things, and so made them types and interpreters of the
spiritual world.
Afterwards I looked at many of the pictures of the old masters, and found
myself gradually getting a taste for them; at least, they give me more
and more pleasure the oftener I come to see them. Doubtless, I shall be
able to pass for a man of taste by the time I return to America. It is
an acquired taste, like that for wines; and I question whether a man is
really any truer, wiser, or better for possessing it. From the old
masters, I went among the English painters, and found myself more
favorably inclined towards some of them than at my previous visits;
seeing something wonderful even in Turner's lights and mists and yeasty
waves, although I should like him still better if his pictures looked in
the least like what they typify.
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