An alteration in the turn or size of a head, or a change in the action of a figure, are very easily carried out in an oil picture, but in a fresco it is a very serious matter to begin alterations.
Thirdly, he must not mind a bit what the workmen and people about the building think of him. I believe that the upper ten thousand (at least the æsthetically inclined amongst them) do not hold mural decoration in contempt, but the working class invariably take the fresco-painter in his blouse and on his scaffold to be one of their own fraternity.
If they were to see the same artist in a handsome studio painting somebody’s portrait in a gilt frame, they would at once suppose he was a gentleman, but coloring a wall is a very ungentlemanly occupation.
When I was painting a large monochrome work at University Hall, there were some plumbers and glaziers employed in repairing gas-pipes and mending windows. One of them came down into the hall where I was at work, and began to look about for something amongst the pots and colors on my table. Apparently he did not find what he wanted, so he turned round and called to me, “I say, governor, you don’t happen to have a bit of putty in your pocket?”
Fourthly and finally, the mural painter ought to be satisfied with moderate pay.
At the Tercentenary Rubens Festival celebrated at Antwerp, last year, an Art Congress was held, at which I assisted.
The principal question proposed for discussion was an eminently practical one. It was; “How can monumental and decorative painting be best encouraged and revived at the present time?”
In answer to this practical question I gave what I thought a practical answer. After passing in review various difficulties with which modern artists had to contend, I summed up by saying that the real impediment to the development of mural painting was its enormous cost, and I pointed out that it was only by the artist accepting very moderate pay, and having at his command a staff of efficient pupils who would be willing to work under him for little or no remuneration, that such works as were executed in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries could again become common. I said a good deal respecting the costliness of large mural paintings done by modern artists of any repute, and on the other hand gave examples of modern work, which, with the help of efficient assistants, had been done not only well but at a moderate cost.
At the conclusion of my paper, up jumped a gifted orator, who knew no more about painting than a cobbler, and in a torrent of eloquence swept away the few grains of common-sense I had ventured to import into the congress.
It was a sacrilege (according to him) to profane the temple of high art with a dirty question of pounds, shillings, and pence.