III. Water-Colors 10 I had been there for a week

I had been there for a week, making my headquarters at the White Hart, when my attention was attracted to a man across the river—it is quite narrow here—a painter, evidently, who seemed to be surrounded by a collection of canvases. He went through the same motions every day, and then my curiosity got the better of me and I went over to see him.
Spread out on the grass lay eight canvases, all of one size, and each one containing a picture of the old brick bridge. oil paintings for sale
"But why eight all alike?" I asked in astonishment.
"Because I can't sell anything else. I am known as the Sonning Bridge painter. I've been at it for twenty years."
It is with this sort of thing, either in the selection of a subject, in its treatment, or in its handling, that I have but little sympathy, even though the great Ruskin, in speaking of this same English water-color school, the one I have catalogued for you, insists that it is the only "true school of landscape which has yet existed," an appreciation which is followed by the outburst that "from the last landscape of Tintoret, if we look for life we will pass at once to the first landscape of Turner." It is, of course,art oil painting for sale, only one of Ruskin's dictatorial statements, admirable when written, because it was read and approved by a class who knew no better and who accepted his words as other blind devotees obeyed the Delphic Oracle—statements, however, which are rejected by many of to-day who think for themselves and who think clearly, having the world's work spread open before them from which to judge.
Once in wandering around the Academia of Venice, taking in for the fiftieth time Titian's masterpiece, I came across an Englishman who had paused in his walk and was adjusting his long-distance telescope—a monocle glued just under his left eyebrow. Mistaking my red-backed sketch-book for a Baedeker, he said, in an apologetic tone:

"Pardon me—I've left mine at home—but will you be good enough to tell me what Mr. Ruskin says about that picture?" abstract oil painting on canvas