I believe the older the
world grows, the better it enjoys a joke. The mediaeval joke
generally was a heavy, lumbering old thing, only a little better
than the classical one. Perhaps in those days life was harder than
it is now, and people if they looked at it at all closely dwelt
upon its soberer side. Certainly in humorous art, we may claim to
be not only principes, but facile principes. Nevertheless, the
Italian comic journals are, some of them, admirably illustrated,
though in a style quite different from our own; sometimes, also,
they are beautifully coloured.
As regards painting, 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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