THE old masters taught, not because they liked teaching, nor yet from any
idea of serving the cause of art, nor yet because they were paid to teach
by the parents of their pupils. The parents probably paid no money at
first. The masters took pupils and taught them because they had more
work to do than they could get through and wanted some one to help them.
They sold the pupil’s work as their own, just as people do now who take
apprentices. When people can sell a pupil’s work, they will teach the
pupil all they know and will see he learns it. This is the secret of the
whole matter.
The modern schoolmaster does not aim at learning from his pupils, he
hardly can, but the old masters did. See how Giovanni Bellini learned
from Titian and Giorgione who both came to him in the same year, as boys,
when Bellini was 63 years old. What a day for painting was that! All
Bellini’s best work was done thenceforward. I know nothing in the
history of art so touching as this. [1883.]