we again get Bellinis and Andrea Mantegnas as in
old time? The fault does not lie in any want of raw material: nor yet
does it lie in want of taking pains. The modern Italian painter frets
himself to the full as much as his predecessor did--if the truth were
known, probably a great deal more. I am sure Titian did not take much
pains after he was more than about twenty years old. It does not lie in
want of schooling or art education. For the last three hundred years,
ever since the Caraccis opened their academy at Bologna, there has been
no lack of art education in Italy. Curiously enough, the date of the
opening of the Bolognese Academy coincides as nearly as may be with the
complete decadence of Italian painting. The academic system trains boys
to study other people's works rather than nature, and, as Leonardo da
Vinci so well says, it makes them nature's grandchildren and not her
children. This I believe is at any rate half the secret of the whole
matter.

If half-a-dozen young Italians could be got together with a taste for
drawing; if they had power to add to their number; if they were allowed
to see paintings and drawings done up to the year A.D. 1510, and votive
pictures and the comic papers; if they were left with no other assistance
than this, absolutely free to please themselves, and could be persuaded
not to try and please any one else, I believe that in fifty years we
should have all that was ever done repeated with fresh naivete, and as
much more delightfully than even by the best old masters, as these are
more delightful than anything we know of in classic painting. The young
plants keep growing up abundantly every day--look at Bastianini, dead not
ten years since--but they are browsed down by the academies. I remember
there came out a book many years ago with the title, "What becomes of all
the clever little children?" I never saw the book, but the title is
pertinent.

Any man who can write, can draw to a not inconsiderable extent. Look at
the Bayeux tapestry; yet Matilda probably never had a drawing lesson in
her life. See how well prisoner after prisoner in the Tower of London
has cut out this or that in the stone of his prison wall, without, in all
probability, having ever tried his hand at drawing before. Look at my
friend Jones, who has several illustrations in this book. {294} The
first year he went abroad with me he could hardly draw at all. He was no
year away from England more tha