The idea, however, that the
Italians were ever a finer people than they are now, will not pass muster
with those who knew them.
At the same time, there can be no doubt that modern Italian art is in
many respects as bad as it was once good. I will confine myself to
painting only. The modern Italian painters, with very few exceptions,
paint as badly as we do, or even worse, and their motives are as poor as
is their painting. At an exhibition of modern Italian pictures, I
generally feel that there is hardly a picture on the walls but is a
sham--that is to say, painted not from love of this particular subject
and an irresistible desire to paint it, but from a wish to paint an
academy picture, and win money or applause.
The last rays of the sunset of genuine art are to be found in the votive
pictures at Locarno or Oropa, and in many a wayside chapel. In these,
religious art still lingers as a living language, however rudely spoken.
In these alone is the story told, not as in the Latin and Greek verses of
the scholar, who thinks he has succeeded best when he has most concealed
his natural manner of expressing himself, but by one who knows what he
wants to say, and says it in his mother-tongue, shortly, and without
caring whether or not his words are in accordance with academic rules. I
regret to see photography being introduced for votive purposes, and also
to detect in some places a disposition on the part of the authorities to
be a little ashamed of these pictures and to place them rather out of
sight.
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