"
Now, I am the last person to call any restoration whatever, judicious.
Of all destructive manias, that of restoration is the frightfullest and
foolishest. Nevertheless, what good, in its miserable way, it can
bring, the poor art scholar must now apply his common sense to take;
there is no use, because a great work has been restored, in now passing
it by altogether, not even looking for what instruction we still may
find in its design, which will be more intelligible, if the restorer
has had any conscience at all, to the ordinary spectator, than it would
have been in the faded work. When, indeed, Mr. Murray's Guide tells you
that a _building_ has been 'magnificently restored,' you may pass
the building by in resigned despair; for _that_ means that every
bit of the old sculpture has been destroyed, and modern vulgar copies
put up in its place. But a restored picture or fresco will often be, to
_you_, more useful than a pure one; and in all probability--if an
important piece of art--it will have been spared in many places,
cautiously completed in others, and still assert itself in a mysterious
way--as Leonardo's Cenacolo does--through every phase of reproduction.
[Footnote: For a test of your feeling in the matter, having looked well
at these two lower frescos in this chapel, walk round into the next,
and examine the lower one on your left hand as you enter that. You will
find in your Murray that the frescos in this chapel "were also till
lately, (1862) covered with whitewash"; but I happen to have a long
critique of this particular picture written in the year 1845, and I see
no change in it since then.
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