by A. J. Cronin
At Victoria they got out of the train and crossed to the main station. The departure board indicated that a train would leave for Halborough in three minutes’ time.
‘If I rush, I’ll get it,’ Carrie exclaimed nervously. ‘Thank you for coming, Stephen. Good-bye.’
‘Good-bye.’
They shook hands hurriedly and awkwardly. Already out of breath, she scuttled like a floundering duck through the barrier on to the platform. He watched until she boarded the train, then turned away. As he came out of the station the newsboys were calling the early editions of the evening papers. Intent on getting home as quickly as possible, he paid no attention to their shouts, but despite his preoccupation, a word here and there intruded upon his moody absorption, and broke through, finally, upon his consciousness. He stopped short and, as in a dream, stunned, yet with a shocked and sickening sense of dismay, read the headlines in the placards:
ACADEMY SENSATION
SCANDAL OF THE CHARMINSTER PANELS REVIVED
R.A. Resigns
Chapter Four
The tram would not go fast enough as, bent over the newspaper with contracted brows, he read and re-read the wavering print. It was five o’clock when he reached Cable Street and there, pacing up and down at the corner bus stop, was Glyn.
‘I thought I might catch you here. Jenny told me you were away.’ Glyn paused, his eye, restive and disturbed, touching the other, then moving away. ‘Let’s have a drink.’
‘I’d rather get home,’ Stephen said stiffly.
‘No, don’t go up there yet.’ Glyn glanced significantly over his shoulder along the street. ‘ I must talk to you first.’
Stephen hesitated, his face hard, unresponsive, then without a word he accompanied the other across the road and into the bar of the Good Intent. The low, sanded room was empty, and in a corner, beneath the model rigged barque that gave the tavern its name, Glyn ordered two double whiskies served hot. His manner, though it held a hint of awkwardness, was taut and truculent. His face was flushed, something of the old fire sparked in his eye. When the grog arrived he said:
‘Drink that up. I had a couple while I was hanging around for you. I’m a little tight, but don’t let that bother you.’
Stephen gulped down a mouthful of the steaming liquid. Choked by bitterness, he was struggling to keep his nerves under control.
‘So now you know,’ Glyn said suddenly ‘ I took your Hampstead Heath and sent it to the Academy.’
‘Without consulting me.’
‘If I had, would you have let me have it?’
‘No … never.’
At the violence of the reply Glyn shot a quick glance at Stephen.
‘Well, I did take it. And it was not an unconsidered act. I had already spoken to three members of the committee, Stead, Elkins, and Prothero, all good fellows, and damn good painters. Don’t look at me like that. At least have the decency to let me explain what happened.’
‘Go on then, for God’s sake.’
Glyn, also on edge, reddened more deeply, and with an effort controlled an angry reply.
‘Blame me as much as you please. But remember that I acted for the best.’ He paused for a moment, then resumed. ‘The meeting of the selection committee took place at eleven o’clock this morning. You probably know the procedure. The members sit in a semicircle of armchairs, with the president in the centre, in one of the galleries of Burlington House. As the paintings are brought in one at a time, by the janitors, and placed on a throne, they vote on them Acceptance is indicated by raising a hand or a finger, rejection by keeping the hands down. Well, it was an extra poor lot this year – apart from a dozen canvases nothing outstanding, the usual run of muddy landscapes, flower arrangements, and dull portraits. Under the circumstances the voting was particularly lenient, it had to be, otherwise there wouldn’t have been any exhibition.’
Glyn broke off and ran his fingers through his hair. ‘We were getting down to the thin end of the submissions when your Heath came in – as a matter of fact I’d arranged it that way. And I can tell you, after what had gone before’ – he struck the table with his fist – ‘it really hit the spot. There was one of those pauses that rarely happen in that room. Everyone sat up and took notice. I could tell at once that the men around me were impressed. When I raised my hand the three fellows I told you of followed suit. Then another hand went up, and a fifth … all from the new group coming on in the Academy, members who don’t spit at modern art, who admire Matisse, Bonnard and Lurcat, and know a fine thing when they see it.’
In spite of his determination to remain detached, Stephen felt a tremor go through his limbs. His eyes were strained as Glyn went on.
‘There’s another group that sits together at the head of the room – old Sir Moses Stencil, Dame Dora Downes, Carrington Woodstock, and Munsey Peters. They’re the old, old guard, and that’s the understatement of all time. Stencil paints nothing but cows, he’s painted more cows than Cooper, more than Harpignies ever painted sheep, they say he keeps a pet Holstein in his Bloomsbury studio. Woodstock, on the other hand, is a dog man, the hearty squire type, he’s painted every pack of hounds in England and comes to the meetings in breeches and a white stock; Dame Dora does those Kensington interiors – you must have seen them reproduced in the Christmas supplements; as for Peters, he’s just Peters – I couldn’t say more than that. I hadn’t expected this lot to like your picture. Who the hell would want them to? And it was obvious they didn’t. However, that didn’t worry me. There’s a convention that if even one R.A. votes for a painting the others automatically agree. I felt sure you were in, when Stencil suddenly got up, hobbled over to the easel, shook his head, then slewed round.
‘“I sincerely hope the committee will remember its responsibilities to the nation before passing favourable judgement on this work.”
‘Actually it is most unusual for anyone to comment on a painting, and there was an odd silence. Then Dame Dora put in her word.
‘“It is certainly outrageously modern.”
‘“And why not?” I said. “ We’re badly in need of new blood.”
‘“Not this kind,” said Woodstock. “It’s entirely the wrong strain.”
‘This exchange had created a diversion which stopped the voting, and Stencil, still standing by the picture, looked across at me.
‘“Do you like this painting, Mr Glyn?”
‘“Very much.”
‘“You don’t find it obscure and unintelligible?”
‘“Not at all.”
‘“Then be so good as to tell me what these innumerable black tongue-lickings in the lower part of the picture represent.”
‘“Those are people walking about.”
‘“Do I look like that when I walk along Piccadilly?”
‘“Perhaps not. These people are younger than you.”
‘“Indeed. Thank you for reminding me of my antiquity. Then what is this conveyance in the left foreground?”
‘“That obviously is a coster’s donkey and barrow.”
‘“Impossible,” Woodstock cut in. “ Never saw such an animal. Its pasterns are all wrong.”
‘“It is certainly not a coloured photograph, if that is your taste. But it conveys its meaning absolutely, and with great feeling.”
‘“By out-of-line drawing?”
‘“Executed deliberately and with infinite skill. Isn’t that better than the servile rendering of nature which so many of us repeat year after year?”
‘Stencil must have thought that I was referring to his cows. He glared at me.
‘“I will not be persuaded to renounce the grammar of design which has been accepted since Giotto.”
‘“Surely that is a reactionary view. When someone gets away from the commonplace you condemn him.”
‘The old boy was losing his temper, and although I had determined to keep mine, it was going too.
‘“I certainly condemn this. There is not one simple, honest presentation of the natural h
uman form in it. This is not a picture, it is a mere spattering of colours.”
‘“Nevertheless, it is art?”
‘“I don’t know anything about art,” Stencil shouted. “But I know what I like. Blood and thunder, we are not here to be made mock of or to allow some artistic adventurer to throw a pot of paint in the public’s face. No normal Britisher would be attracted to this picture.”
‘“I agree. And you could not pay it a higher compliment.”
‘“Indeed, sir. So you impugn the national taste?”
‘“Naturally. After a diet of your cows and Woodstock’s hounds they must obviously be suffering from chronic indigestion.”
‘I knew I was going too far, but my blood was up, I couldn’t help myself. The president intervened.
‘“Order, order, gentlemen. All this is most irregular. If we are to have a discussion on this work, let us keep it within bound and without personalities, please.”
‘But Stencil was out of control now, he banged the floor with that ebony stick he uses, I thought he was going to have a stroke.
‘“Mr President, and gentlemen of the committee, I have been a member of the Royal Academy for more than thirty years. During that time I have tried with all my strength to preserve the fount of British art at its source. By setting my face sternly against all foreign influence and innovations, new experiments, expressionism, and all forms of exoticism, I have, I submit, in all modesty, helped to keep our heritage undefiled. I have always been able to look my conscience in the eye and say that here, at the Royal Academy Exhibitions, the people of our country will see only works which are solid, honest and wholesome.”
‘There were protests at this from our end.’ Glyn paused and took another swig of grog. ‘But Stencil went on.
‘“What is this so-called modern art? I will tell you. Nothing but a lot of damned nonsense. Some upstart the other day had the insolence to declare that Renoir was a greater painter than Romney. I tell you, if I had been there I would have taken my stick to him. What is all the fancy daubing of these Frenchmen but a cover up for bad technique? If we are to paint a meadow, for God’s sake let us make it look like a meadow, and not like a patch of verdigris. Don’t let us have this affected juggling with form and colour which no sensible man can comprehend. You all know that a certain modernistic statue was recently erected at the taxpayers’ expense in a public park in this city. It was presumed to be the figure of a woman, and God help all women if they look like that, indeed it so angered and disgusted the decent ordinary people of the neighbourhood that one night some honest citizen smeared it with tar and feathers and by the mercy of Providence it had to be removed. Now this picture is clearly in the same unwholesome category. It offends one’s eye immediately as unreal, distorted and pernicious. It is no more like Hampstead Heath than my foot. It is, in every detail, a dangerous outbreak from orthodox tradition. It is rank socialism. Gentlemen, we cannot support a decay of elegance and good taste which can only confuse and corrupt our younger generation of artists. One never knows when a revolution may break out. It is our responsibility to crush it in the bud.”
‘With a final tattoo, Stencil sat down. By this time I was boiling mad. There, in front of me, was your beautiful painting and here was this … this cow-fancier, who didn’t comprehend even the first stroke of your brush, with the other die-hards leaning over to congratulate him. I got to my feet.
‘“You say that our responsibility is to suppress. I say it is to support and encourage. Good God, we are not policemen. Why should we set out to kill all provocative and venturesome art? Every original artist of the past hundred years has been the victim of this assassination. Courbet and Delacroix were both stabbed in the back – while the Barbizon school, turning out its traditional tripe, was exalted to the skies. Ridicule and abuse smothered the Impressionists. Cézanne was called a clumsy dauber, Van Gogh a psychopathic mutilator, Gauguin a half-baked amateur whose work gave out the odour of a dead rat. The Fauves were hooted at, Braque reviled, Seurat and Redon stigmatised as madmen. You can look it up, it’s in the record. There was always some damned traditionalist who felt himself attacked, insulted and undermined, standing there, eaten up by jealousy, with a sneer on his lips and a brickbat in his fist. But in spite of that their work lives, and the man with the sneer is not even remembered. And I’ll wager this – however much you may snarl at it – the painting before us now will still be alive when every damn one of us gathered in this room is dead and forgotten.”’
Glyn, losing a little of his violence, drank again, then shook his head. ‘It was the wrong line to take, Desmonde, but before Heaven, I couldn’t help it. There was a kind of hollow pause. Then, as nobody seemed to have anything to say, the President, who is a good fellow and wanted to end the squabble, proposed that the vote be taken. Then an odd thing became apparent. I began to sense that in general the attitude of the committee was favourable. Yes, I’ll swear to it. They were for you. The hands were ready to go up when all at once Peters, who hadn’t opened his mouth during the entire rumpus, suddenly said:
‘“One moment please.”
‘Everyone looked at him as he bent forward, with his pince-nez on the end of his nose, peering at your signature on the canvas. Then he settled himself back in his chair.
‘“Gentlemen, I have so far abstained from this controversy because I had a vague suspicion that I had come across work of this nature some years before. And now I am certain of the fact. I must inform you that the painter of this picture is none other than the man responsible for the notorious Charminster panels, who was convicted in open court of producing and exhibiting obscene art.”
‘There was a sensation, of course, and, my God, I wish you had seen the look of justification on Stencil’s face.
‘“I told you it was degenerate. And it is.”
‘Peters continued: “How can we assume the onus of sanctioning work from such a source? If we do so, we set the seal of our approval on it.”
‘I had realised what was coming, and I jumped up again.
‘“Are we judging panels that were burned through crass ignorance over seven years ago, or this painting before us now?”
‘I can’t remember all I said, I was so angry at the time I scarcely knew what I came out with, except that it was hot and strong. But it was no use, and I knew it. Even those who would otherwise have supported you were afraid to risk a scandal. There was only one thing for me to do. I wanted to do it and, by God, it gave me some satisfaction. I resigned on the spot. And I’m damned glad I did. I’ve been getting soft in these last years, Desmonde, flabby and stodgy, my work isn’t near as good as it used to be. I’m sick of turning out made-to-order portraits for Hammerhead and his kind, fed to the teeth painting strings of decorations on the pigeon chests of peers of the realm. I’m going to get out the old caravan and push off to North Wales with Anna. Maybe I’ll do some real work there. And now that’s off my chest, I hope you’re not too mad at me. I admit now that I was wrong. You can’t ram a masterpiece down the throat of a committee. Rembrandt found that out with the Insolvency Chamber in Amsterdam. And El Greco with the Spanish Ecclesiastical Commission. I only hope you won’t take it too much to heart. After all, what do we care what the ruddy world thinks of us? Let’s have another drink.’
Stephen gazed at the other in silence, his features pale and impassive. The long recital which Glyn, perhaps in self-justification, had been at pains to present in detail, had carried him through anger and distress to a final indifference. But the hurt was deep and he knew he would feel the pain of it again. If only Richard had left him alone, without interference, simply left him alone. Still, he could bear no rancour in his overshadowed heart, nor would he reveal the fresh anxieties that had been created for him. He held out his hand.
Glyn now tossed off his grog and, more than a little elevated, clapped Stephen fraternally on the shoulder.
‘Let’s go, Desmonde. I’ll see you home. And if there’s bloody well trouble ahe
ad, by God, we’ll stand up to it.’
Chapter Five
Art, in the national sense, must always be regarded as a serious matter. Coming at a season when copy was scarce, with no more than a dull murder in Glasgow and a somewhat unenterprising society divorce to appease the public appetite for news, this startling incident at the Academy was a windfall to the popular press. After the Charminster trial the reaction had been local rather than general. Now, however, the affair was given wide circulation – in particular by those Sunday papers whose duty it is to safeguard the decencies of England by presenting in full the more succulent misdemeanours of the day. Under this leadership the new scandal rekindled the ashes of the old. Files of the Charminster Chronicle were combed for tasty tit-bits. A drawing of Stephen, standing in the dock, was reproduced from the County Gazette. Archibald Dalgetty, whose articles in the Universe News were read by millions and who, perhaps more than any other man, could be regarded as the protector and upholder of British morality, who, indeed, had just added to his lustre by flagellating an unfortunate woman novelist for her book The Lonely Heart, seized sternly upon the affair. Under the withering heading of ART RUN AMUCK, just indignation flowed from his pen. What, he asked, had happened to Old England when such an insult could be offered to one of her most cherished, revered, and dignified institutions, when under duress, its aesthetic bastions were threatened by obscure and revolutionary works from a brush already proven to be putrid and debauched? Not all the outcry was so elevated in tone. There were snickers in the livelier publications, jokes on the vaudeville stage, and in one of the picture weeklies, a cartoon appeared which showed a furtive-looking individual accosting a dignified top-hatted Academician outside the steps of Burlington House: ‘Want to buy a spicy postcard, mister?’
During the days that followed, Stephen went on working with that disregard of exterior events which was now so strong it took the form of disdainful contempt. Once again, through no fault of his own, he was in the pillory of publicity, held up to general contempt. How did it come about that he, by nature quiet, unassuming and retiring, who all his life had desired nothing more than to pursue his art in peace, should have so violently drawn upon himself this outburst of condemnation? An enterprising journalist had found it necessary, in the public interest, to present a brief sketch of his career, and it was as though this record of his years – his defection from the Church, from his family, and above all from his country – revealed him as unnatural and despicable, deserving fully the odium of his fellows.
