There is one
kind of knowledge of pictures which is the artist's, and another which
is the antiquary's and the picture-dealer's; the latter especially
acute, and founded on very secure and wide knowledge of canvas,
pigment, and tricks of touch, without, necessarily, involving any
knowledge whatever of the qualities of art itself. There are few
practised dealers in the great cities of Europe whose opinion would not
be more trustworthy than mine, (if you could _get_ it, mind you,)
on points of actual authenticity. But they could only tell you whether
the picture was by such and such a master, and not at all what either
the master or his work were good for. Thus, I have, before now, taken
drawings by Varley and by Cousins for early studies by Turner, and have
been convinced by the dealers that they knew better than I, as far as
regarded the authenticity of those drawings; but the dealers don't know
Turner, or the worth of him, so well as I, for all that. So also, you
may find me again and again mistaken among the much more confused work
of the early Giottesque schools, as to the authenticity of this work or
the other; but you will find (and I say it with far more sorrow than
pride) that I am simply the only person who can at present tell you the
real worth of _any_; you will find that whenever I tell you to
look at a picture, it is worth your pains; and whenever I tell you the
character of a painter, that it _is_ his character, discerned by
me faithfully in spite of all confusion of work falsely attributed to
him in which similar character may exist.
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