Viewing page 14 of 47

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

our naive flower pots and a [[custom?]] plant stand on top of the wall. This is the composition. [[image drawn]] The priest stands in the middle in light grenish [[greenwich?]] green - Joseph & Mary on back side of him - facing each other and with their left hands extended to each other The Virgin is a tiny Maiden in a long pale pink gown. Her golden hair is brushed off her face and her little eyes are looking straight ahead at nothing, with a combined expression of profound awe and pleasure, and unconsciousness of being observed. The old priest looks at her out of the corner of his eyes, wondering and a little bit scared. Josephs regards are concentrated on her, with perfectly rapt affection reverence and satisfaction. The rest of the people on each side are all extremely human and are behaving exactly in accordance with their type - but nothing exaggerated  That is the wonder of it from a few feet off this little picture appears the most delicate and conventional bit of decoration, the pale pink and blue gowns exactly match from side to side, and at exactly the same distances apart. The people have no apparent bones or bodies and are standing on the tips of the blades of grass partly on tip-toe It is these inconsistencies, and naivetes of the early masters, that especially please me. May thinks them uninteresting except perhaps as a mass of color. but for a deep and affectionate observation of humanity in general and particular, to be able to make itself felt with a perfectly pure and unerring though apparently unaflicting artistic inclined - in a little row of little formless creatures in pale pink and blue, and yellow robes, embroidered with real gold, with flat green paint inside their feet, or grass made like this [[image drawn]] and flat blue paint or gold behind their heads - this seems to me to have the most delicious charm and wonder in it. I say 

Transcription Notes:
---------- Reopened for Editing 2023-09-24 23:43:12