Vulgar words in Ariadne Florentina - Six Lectures on Wood and Metal Engraving (Page 1)
This book at a glance
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~ ~ ~ Sentence 396 ~ ~ ~
And the epithet bestowed on Perugino by Michael Angelo, 'goffo nell' arte,' dunce, or blockhead, in art,--being, as far as my knowledge of history extends, the most cruel, the most false, and the most foolish insult ever offered by one great man to another,--does you at least good service, in showing how trenchant the separation is between the two orders of artists,[H]--how exclusively we may follow out the history of all the 'goffi nell' arte,' and write our Florentine Dunciad, and Laus Stultitiæ, in peace; and never trench upon the thoughts or ways of these proud ones, who showed their fathers' nakedness, and snatched their masters' fame.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 538 ~ ~ ~
Nothing delights a true blockhead so much as to prove a negative;--to show that everybody has been wrong.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,861 ~ ~ ~
So, for the pathetic side of the business, he draws you two old soldiers meeting as bricklayers' laborers; and for the absurd side of it, he draws a stone, sloping sideways with age, in a bare field, on which you can just read, out of a long inscription, the words "glorious victory;" but no one is there to read them,--only a jackass, who uses the stone to scratch himself against.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,873 ~ ~ ~
Is not that a little better, and a little wiser, than Bewick's jackass?