imitate, this alone seemed to be art to them, the rest was
childishness: so wonderful was their energy, their success so
great, that no doubt to commonplace minds among them, though surely
not to the great masters, that perfection seemed to be gained: and,
perfection being gained, what are you to do?--you can go no further,
you must aim at standing still--which you cannot do.

Art by no means stood still in those latter days of the Renaissance,
but took the downward road with terrible swiftness, and tumbled down
at the bottom of the hill, where as if bewitched it lay long in
great content, believing itself to be the art of Michael Angelo,
while it was the art of men whom nobody remembers but those who want
to sell their pictures.

Thus it fared with the more individual forms of art. As to the art
of the people; in countries and places where the greater art had
flourished most, it went step by step on the downward path with
that: in more out-of-the-way places, England for instance, it still
felt the influence of the life of its earlier and happy days, and in
a way lived on a while; but its life was so feeble, and, so to say,
illogical, that it could not resist any change in external
circumstances, still less could it give birth to anything new; and
before this century began, its last flicker had died out. Still,
while it was living, in whatever dotage, it did imply something
going on in those matters of daily use that we have been thinking
of, and doubtless satisfied some cravings for beauty: and when it
was dead, for a long time people did not know it, or what had taken
its place, crept so to say into its dead body--that pretence of art,
to wit, which is done with machines, though sometimes the machines
are called men, and doubtless are so out of working hours: