Scan 12
Joseph Guarnerius, his work and his master [Andreas Gisalberti], 1906
8 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1PREFATORY REMARKS.
3There seems to have been a lull or pause after the disappearance of the group of masters, the praise of whom has since made the whole world ring. Other men rose in turn and gave faint promise of filling up the gap that seemed to be opening wider and wider as time progressed, till at last it dawned upon the minds of observers that there was no sign apparent on the horizon that the art would again be what it was in former times, in short it had departed.
5The connoisseurs now began collecting, and dealers to make money out of them. The outside world wanted what was increasingly difficult to obtain, and so fraudulent imitators did their best to deceive all. The public interest in the old, now great, masters grew yearly, and inquiries were on foot as to the kind of men they were, how they lived, what they did, besides any possible intelligence concerning their manners, customs, virtues and vices, of which as a whole there was scarcely more than a few idle stories. The circumscribed little world in which they moved was undergoing a change which perhaps seemed gradual during its progress, but was, as we now look back upon it, somewhat rapid and not slow.
7This change, however, was a substantial and permanent one; whether commencing at the chief centres of the art or closing in upon them from surrounding countries, is a question that may well be taken up for attention in the future. At present we can only take the circumstances as they present themselves and consider the main features in connection therewith, the principal being the gradual elbowing out of the field of the old type of liutaros and the substitution of the modern manufacturer with his middleman or agent. To-day he is to be recognized in a palatial residence on the side of a hill while his factory hands are in the most modest of dwelling-houses below, used by divided and subdivided groups of workers in which are included women and children, each taking their part and keeping to that solely. Thus each detail is completed swiftly and cheaply as possible, the finished—can we say harmonious—structure
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