Full Idea
Ordinary people have almost no idea of what things really look like, so that the one standard that popular criticism applies to painting (whether it is like nature or not) is the one which most people are prevented frm applying properly.
Gist of Idea
Popular opinion favours realism, yet most people never look closely at anything!
Source
Roger Fry (An Essay in Aesthetics [1909], p.29)
Book Reference
Fry,Roger: 'Vision and Design' [Penguin 1937], p.29
A Reaction
A nice remark, though there is a streak of Bloomsbury artistic snobbery running through Fry. Ordinary people recognise photographic realism, so they can study things closely either in the reality or the picture, should they so choose.