Page:Meda - a tale of the future.djvu/82

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MEDA:

are individual, so long as they keep to still life, or even to painting single figures from life, they produce splendid work; but when they try grouping, when they try to represent distance, the exactness of their details destroys the entire effect. Then when we come to their modelling in clay—what you call reproductions of ancient statuary—when I think of Venus with a head out of all proportion to her body, with a chest big enough for three Venuses, and with a waist not big enough for a baby Venus, and twice as long as it should be, it is to me really too awful to contemplate."

"My poor Specimen," he said, "I can now quite understand your horror. It is quite natural for you to feel as you do, but you must remember that our people do not see as you see. You notice as we came along that I could see and recognise my friends that were approaching me long before you were conscious that they were coming towards us. All our people see with the same distinctness, and if they painted pictures that appeared correct to