The smith was tall and slim and very gentle. His face was like that of the youthful king who holds the chalice in Pietro’s fresco, it merely lacked the affectation, and his perfectly simple comments seemed to us more genuine and impressive than many books of critics. We listened to them gladly, but as we turned our faces homewards, we remembered certain other subtle and delightful phrases written by Alinda Brunamonti upon a work of Perugino. With these calm words we close a book which opened with the clash of swords and the conflicts of the Umbrian people:
“Sorrow does not disturb serenity; pain is at enmity with joy but not with peace. This Christian law is incarnated within our art. Peace and not joy is in her idylls; peace in the landscapes which are so utterly our own, and so serenely beautiful. How often—even whilst my vision wandered into the infinitude of sky behind our blue green hills, and further again beyond the outposts of the Apennines, and further still away into the depths of the azure-laden air—have I not said unto myself; ‘This vision surely is of an insuperable loveliness! How therefore could our artists fail to be above all things ideal when Nature of herself had trained them in schools of such an exquisite perfection?’ ”
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