Miles of worship

We visited the Louvre, at a time when we had no silk purchases in view, and looked at its miles of paintings by the old masters.

Some of them were beautiful, but at the same time they carried such evidences about them of the cringing spirit of those great men that we found small pleasure in examining them.

Their nauseous adulation of princely patrons was more prominent to me and chained my attention more surely than the charms of color and expression which are claimed to be in the pictures.

Gratitude for kindnesses is well, but it seems to me that some of those artists carried it so far that it ceased to be gratitude and became worship. …

Source: The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain

Such is the nature of images.

He later noticed, “I travel to learn, and I still remember that they picture no French defeats in the battle-galleries of Versailles.”