1434. In these paintings most of the forms are swallowed up in murky shadows, but light from mysterious sources lights up a part of a face whose eyes turn toward heaven. In those eyes the moisture of future tears is rendered with sensitive delicacy. Along the lower eyelid one can see tiny strokes of almost white paint, tinted with a little ultramarine blue.
1435. Such was Mrs. Festini's description of those paintings as an adult; no ideas or categorizations crossed her mind at ten years old. These were paintings in a museum; therefore they must be great masterpieces, but even at ten years old she could feel that there was a direct connection between the meaningless first prize picture in the annual show and these figure paintings in the secret room.
1436. Years later she summed up her childhood impressions saying. "These paintings were like the idiot children of royal families; the museum, like a palace, was their home. Because of the accident of their birth they were accorded the respect and admiration their ancestors were accustomed to receive from the masses, yet the entire situation made one acutely aware of the deficiencies of the system.
1437. All the while she was looking at these paintings, one after another, she was aware that in the corner of the room was a marble statue of a man on a pedestal. This was the notorious marble man with something supposedly broken off and glued back on that she had been told about. At that age she knew absolutely nothing about such things but she was curious.
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