At first _gesso_ was used, but it
was found not to answer the purpose. Every smallest fragment of
painting is saved, and the blank spaces are filled in with plaster
which is painted a light gray. This freshens and throws out the
adjoining colors.
It is customary to call the lower church "devotional." With many, a
dark church is always devotional. I should rather call it sympathetic.
Every sort of mood may here find itself reflected, and the sinner be as
much at home as the saint. Anger and hate may hide as well as devotion:
the artist may dream, the weary may rest, the stupid doze. The only
objects which ever seemed to me utterly incongruous there were a brisk
company of hurried tourists, red-covered guidebook in hand, clattering
with sharp-sounding boot-heels up the dim nave and talking with sharp,
loud voices at the very steps of the altar where people were kneeling
at the most solemn moment of the mass. But even these invariably soften
their tones and their movements after a while.
This church has always some pleasant surprise for the frequent visitor.
The morning light shows one picture, the evening light another: the
sunrise adorns this window, the sunset that.
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