582 HISTORY OF ART 



strange morasses. Perhaps Mr. Berenson is less blinded by it than 

 others because he frankly says that: "Method interests me more 

 than results, the functioning of the mind much more than the 

 ephemeral object of functioning." He is more interested in whether 

 his hypothesis will work out than in the facts which constitute 

 history. He has "long cherished the conviction that the world's art 

 can be, nay, should be. studied as independently of all documents 

 as the world's fauna or the world's flora." 



Now let me cite just one instance of the way this principle has 

 worked in the hands of Mr. Berenson. He notes, as many of us have 

 noted, that there are a number of fifteenth-century Florentine 

 pictures, variously attributed in the European galleries to Botticelli. 

 Filippo Lippi, and Filippino, which are obviously by one hand. He 

 rightly assumes that these pictures may be by a painter now unknown 

 and forgotten. He brings them together and shows their points 

 of resemblance quite conclusively. It is really a fine clearing up of 

 a dubious lot of pictures, done skillfully and with great knowledge. 

 Had he rested there, with the statement that this painter was 

 unknown, no one could have found the least fault with his mental 

 functioning. But he goes a step further. He ventures, half in jest 

 and half in earnest, to give this unknown painter a name, a manu- 

 factured name Amico di Sandro that is the friend or companion 

 in art of Sandro Botticelli. He not only constructs and names 

 this painter but he actually makes him influence Filippino in order 

 to account for a something in Filippino's work not traceable to his 

 reputed master Botticelli ! 



I submit that, however clever, audacious, or inspired this method 

 of Mr. Berenson's may seem, it is not productive of art-history; 

 and if you ask me what harm it does I answer that I have seen since 

 that essay was written, more than once, the name of Amico di Sandro 

 recorded in art-histories as a fact and not a figment. It will take 

 many years before that man of straw is finally removed from the 

 pathway, and meantime it is a stumbling-block to those who are 

 seeking the truth of history. I cannot but feel that the creation of 

 such an homunculus does not exemplify the science of the history 

 of art at all. The method is not scientific in the true sense but wildly 

 speculative; though I admit it is interesting and in its incidental , 

 information most instructive. 



The worst or the best, if you please, of all these modern critics and 

 historians is that they are not to be ignored. They are very learned, 

 very keen seers, very appreciative students. And in the main they 

 are on the right track. I myself was committed to the Morellian 

 theory over twenty years ago. and I am still a student of it and a 

 believer in it. It is an invaluable aid in establishing the authenticity 

 of works of art; but it is not the whole truth, not the only truth, not 



