Faldoni, parts 2820 - 2823

 2820. You can’t just disregard the question of how long a thing takes to do can you? Why, every one who comes to my studio, the first thing they say is “How long did it take you to do this?” It is obvious that the fact that my pictures take endless amounts of time to complete affords those viewers some sort of odd satisfaction. I hardly ever tell them the truth, because I know they would be disappointed.

 2821. For an Englishman, and for the Americans also, we value hard work, the harder the better. We think that a drawing that takes one hundred hours to do is automatically worth a hundred times more than a sketch that takes only one hour. It goes without saying. 

 2822. I think that is the reason those sloppy sketches in oil with no detail, and done in a half an hour by those superficial Frenchmen like Corot will never catch on here in England. We look at it and the first thing we think is, “Why, this took only a few minutes to dash off so it can’t be any good can it.” 

 

 2823. No, an Englishman likes to travel to India for a vacation and make a detour to visit the ruins of the Hindu Temple at Khajuraho just so he can stand in front of a gigantic mountain of  solid rock that has been carved into intricate patterns with fornicating stone figures and be able to think to himself, “Now that thing took thousands of people hundreds of years to create.” And the very fact that it took so long, and made so many knuckles bleed is the reason we like it so much.