There are few modern painters who are not greater technically than
Giotto, but I cannot call to mind a single one whose work impresses me as
profoundly as his does. How is it that our so greatly better should be
so greatly worse—that the farther we go beyond him the higher he stands
above us? Time no doubt has much to do with it, for, great as Giotto
was, there are painters of to-day not less so, if they only dared express
themselves as frankly and unaffectedly as he did.