Download File

AN EXPENSIVE " MASTERPIECE " 193
art fund ? Well,
in this case I think it is
possible to follow the workings of official taste.
Officials know as well as the rest of us that
T'ang art is well thought of, and that without
some important example of it no Oriental
collection is deemed complete. But T'ang art,
as a rule, is neither literary nor pretty nor at
all the sort of thing the collecting class cares
for. What this class really likes is the art
of the eighteenth century and the art of the
high Renaissance. Miraculously comes to light
an important figure labelled T'ang yet rich in
the dear, familiar qualities of Renaissance
sculpture. As usual, the officials have got it
both ways. Surely Providence had a hand in
this, unless it was the dealers.
N