characters on which the members of the Arundel Society can justifiably
pride themselves, have, nevertheless, a real and effective value, if
considered as a series of maps of the Arena frescoes. Few artists of
eminence pass through Padua without making studies of detached
portions of the decoration of this Chapel, while no artist has time to
complete drawings of the whole. Such fragmentary studies might now at
any time be engraved with advantage, their place in the series being
at once determinable by reference to the woodcuts; while qualities of
expression could often be obtained in engravings of single figures,
which are sure to be lost in an entire subject. The most refined
character is occasionally dependent on a few happy and light touches,
which, in a single head, are effective, but are too feeble to bear due
part in an entire composition, while, in the endeavour to reinforce
them, their vitality is lost. I believe the members of the Arundel
Society will perceive, eventually, that no copies of works of great
art are worthily representative of them but such as are made freely,
and for their own purposes, by great painters: the best results
obtainable by mechanical effort will only be charts or plans of
pictures, not mirrors of them. Such charts it is well to command in as
great number as possible, and with all attainable completeness; but
the Society cannot be considered as having entered on its true
functions until it has obtained the hearty co-operation of European
artists, and by the increase of its members, the further power of
representing the subtle studies of masterly painters by the aid of
exquisite engraving.
End of Project Gutenberg's Giotto and his works in Padua, by John Ruskin