Faldoni, parts 2792 - 2795

 2792. No, the above statement is incorrect! We have to leave out the Sistine Chapel because Michelangelo did not employ any assistants in any of his work. And so, if you look carefully at the figures, you will not find any hairs painted on his figures. Mr. Buonarroti is content to indicate the hair-do’s of his figures, but not any actual hairs.

 2793. He also treats all of his draperies in a broad way, as if  big wool army blankets had been thrown over his figures, employing only sometimes a purple stripe along an edge for elaboration. But never do you find him painting tedious little patterns in his cloth, a thing which is so fascinating in the works of Holbein who was his contemporary.

 2794. But I do not need these critics finding fault with my ideas about the role of tiny details in oil paintings and the question of whether the little details enhance or detract from the quality of the works. I can point out, all by myself, a perfect example of very fine paintings the rendering of which is resolved down the most minute details, and done without the help of any assistants.

2795. Whether we want to or not, we have to include in this discussion the paintings of those painters called the Pre-Raphaelites, those English painters whose works do seem to have been painted from start to finish with the one hair brush.