. . . .
Before leaving the church we went to look at the mosaic copy of the
"Transfiguration," because we were going to see the original in the
Vatican, and wished to compare the two. Going round to the entrance of
the Vatican, we went first to the manufactory of mosaics, to which we had
a ticket of admission. We found it a long series of rooms, in which the
mosaic artists were at work, chiefly in making some medallions of the
heads of saints for the new church of St. Paul's. It was rather coarse
work, and it seemed to me that the mosaic copy was somewhat stiffer and
more wooden than the original, the bits of stone not flowing into color
quite so freely as paint from a brush. There was no large picture now in
process of being copied; but two or three artists were employed on small
and delicate subjects. One had a Holy Family of Raphael in hand; and the
Sibyls of Guercino and Domenichino were hanging on the wall, apparently
ready to be put into mosaic. Wherever great skill and delicacy, on the
artists' part were necessary, they seemed quite adequate to the occasion;
but, after all, a mosaic of any celebrated picture is but a copy of a
copy.
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