Faldoni, parts 2700 - 2703

 2700. Even today if you visit to the Fiat factory in Milan you might hear a foreman say to a laborer, “Please faldoni all the headlight attachment screws, and when you are done with that you can faldoni the hood ornaments.”

 2701. But, you might say, the painting of pictures is very far removed from the procedures of assembling cars. Not only that, but it seems that the nearly mindless and soul numbing activity of repeating the same small chore from morning to night and then the next day, would be anathema to artists. We like to think that the creative act is constantly exciting and engrossing, and so has no place for  rote, repetition, or monotony. 

 2702. But the mass production version of Faldoni’s method is an unfortunate corruption of his discovery. In actual fact his procedure resulted in a finished painting which was obviously superior to the results of the previous method of painting everything to completion, section by section as one went along.

2703. At first nobody could figure out why Faldoni’s method should be more successful, but if you have been following this tedious and minute explanation of Faldoni’s development the explanation may have dawned on you. If I were some professor teaching an art history class, which I decidedly am not, I might pose these questions to my students, “What things did Faldoni learn in his cell, painting the faces that would result in his decorative borders being more perfect that previously painted borders?”