“Eventually I went to Italy and spent five months away.”
Thus, the year 1883 opened with brighter prospects. Not only was it easier to get articles accepted and published, but “William obtained the post of London Art Critic to The Glasgow Herald, to be taken up in the autumn. During his stay in London he had made a continual study of the Old Masters, and his connection with The Fine Art Society had brought him in touch with modern work and living artists. Therefore, with the opportune cheque in his pocket he decided to spend the ensuing months in careful study of pictures in Italy.
He left London at the end of February, and remained in Italy till the end of June, when he joined my mother and myself in the Ardennes.
He went first of all to stay with an aunt of mine, Mrs. Smillie, who had a villa in the outskirts of Florence. From that city and later from Rome and Venice he wrote to me the following impressions:
Florence,
Wednesday, 14: 3: 83.
... “Yesterday morning I went to Sta. Maria Novella, and enjoyed it greatly. It is a splendid place, though on a first visit I was less impressed than by Santa Croce....
The monumental sculpture is not so fine as in Santa Croce, but on the other hand there are some splendid paintings and frescoes—amongst others Cimabue’s famous picture of the Virgin seated on a throne. I admired some frescoes by Fillipino Lippi—also those in the Choir by Ghirlandajio: in the Capella dei Strozzi (to the left) I saw the famous frescoes of Orcagna, the Inferno and Paradiso. They greatly resemble the same subjects by the same painter in the Campo Santo at Pisa. What a horrible imagination, poisoned by horrible superstitions, these old fellows had: his Paradise, while in some ways finely imagined, is stiff and unimpressive, and his Inferno simply repellent. It is strange that religious art should have in general been so unimaginative. The landscapes I care most for here are those of the early Giottesque and pre-Raphaelite painters—they are often very beautiful—for the others, there is more in Turner than in them all put together....”
Florence, 18: 3: 83.