Faldoni, parts 2856 - 2859

 2856. When Holman said the words “Shallow exactitude,” he knew he was going a bit too far and letting his irritation with John show a bit too much, but he could not help himself.

 2857. “How can exactitude ever be shallow?” replied John M., seizing on Holman’s most insulting words to respond to. “The problem is this. A painting takes me a year to complete. During that time hundreds of good ideas come into my head and I have to discard them forever. Not only that but the excitement I had for the idea when I began completely disappears after so many months.”

 2858. Now we are members of the Brotherhood, and as such we revere the works of the  early Renaissance painters who worked before Raphael. We like best the paintings of artists like Fra Angelico, but the problem is that it is obvious to me at least that some of his greatest paintings took only a few days to complete.

2859. When I consider that some of the paintings I like the most took only a few days to complete I start to think that this compulsion we Englishmen have to try to paint things like dust on furniture and flies wings is seriously misguided.