Ah, Mr. Aylwin, did it never occur to you
how important is the expression of the model from whom you work?'
'I am not a painter,' I said, 'only an amateur,' trying to stop a
conversation that might run on for an hour.
'It has never occurred to you! That is strange. Let me read to you a
passage upon this subject just published in _The Art Review_, written
by the great painter D'Arcy.'
He then took from Cyril's table a number of _The Art Review_, and
began to read aloud:--
It is a curious thing that not only the general public, but the art
connoisseurs and the writers upon art, although they know full well
how a painter goes to work in painting a picture, speak and write
as though they thought that the head of a beautiful woman was drawn
from the painter's inner consciousness, instead of from the real
woman who sits to him as a model. Notwithstanding all the technical
excellence of Raphael, his extraordinary good luck in finding the
model that suited his genius had very much to do with his enormous
success and fame.
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