Dr. Thorndyke Omnibus Vol 7

by R. Austin Freeman

  Tom considered this new masterpiece with knitted brows and a feeling of growing bewilderment. It represented two human figures such as might have been drawn by an average child of nine or ten with no natural aptitude for art, in a heavy, clumsy pencil outline filled in with daubs of colour; As the serious production of a sane adult, the thing was incredible.

  "They are a good deal alike," Tom remarked, by way of saying something.

  "Yes," she agreed, "but of course they would be, as they haven’t any clothes, poor things. The bigger one would naturally be Adam, though it really doesn’t matter. The title is only a convention. The picture is really a study in essential form."

  "I see," said Tom, though he didn’t; but he continued to gaze at the work with bulging eyeballs while the lady looked over his shoulder with a curious cryptic smile—which vanished instantly when he turned towards her. After a prolonged inspection with no further comment, he cast a furtive glance at the portfolio, whereupon his hostess removed the figure subject and replaced it by another painting, apparently representing a human head and shoulders, and, in character, very much like those "portraits" with which untalented schoolchildren adorn blank spaces in their copybooks. Such, in fact, Tom at first assumed it to be, but the artist hastily corrected him.

  "Oh, no," said she. "It is not imitative. I have called it ‘Madonna,’ but it is just a study in simplification based on the architectural structure of the human head, with all the irrelevant details eliminated."

  "Yes," Tom commented, "I noticed that there had been a good deal of elimination. Those brown patches, I suppose, represent the hair?"

  "They don’t represent it," she replied. "They merely acknowledge and connote its existence. Perhaps, in a non-representational work, they are really superfluous, but they are useful in elucidating the pattern."

  This explanation left Tom speechless as did the other selections from the portfolio. They were all much of the same kind; either meaningless streaks of colour or childish drawings of men and animals. Some of them he judged to be landscapes from the appearance in them of green, mop-like shapes, which might have "connoted" trees, and in one the simplified landscape was inhabited by abstract animals suggesting the cruder productions of a toy-shop.

  "Well," said Mrs. Schiller as she returned the last of them to the portfolio, "that is my repertoire; and now that you have seen them all, I want you to tell me frankly what you think of them. You need not mind being outspoken. Candid criticism is what I want from you."

  "But my dear Mrs. Schiller," Tom exclaimed despairingly, "I am quite incompetent to criticize your work. I know nothing whatever about this modernist art excepting that it is a totally different thing from the art which I have always known and practised. And we can’t discuss it because we are not speaking the same language. When I paint a picture I aim at beauty and interest; and since there is nothing so beautiful as nature, I keep as close to natural appearances as I can. And as a picture is a work of imagination and not a mere representation like an illustration in a scientific textbook, I try to arrange my objects in a pleasing composition and to make them convey some interesting ideas. But, apparently, modernist art avoids truth to nature and any kind of intellectual or emotional interest. I don’t understand it at all."

  "But," she objected, "don’t you find beauty in abstract form?"

  "I have always supposed," he replied, "that abstract form appertains to mathematics, whereas painting and sculpture are concerned with visible and tangible things. But really, Mrs. Schiller, it’s of no use for me to argue the question. We are talking and thinking on different planes."

  "I suppose we really are," she agreed, "but it’s rather disappointing. I had hoped to profit by your experience, but I see now that it has no bearing on modern art. But never mind, we will drown our disagreements in the teapot. Will you take this chair while I boil the kettle, or would you prefer a softer one?"

  "I like a hard chair," replied Tom.

  "So do I. Odd, isn’t it, that women seem to want a chair stuffed like a feather bed and piled up with cushions? I could never understand why, seeing that they are lighter than men, as a rule, and better covered."

  "Perhaps," Tom suggested, as he subsided on to the wooden-seated chair, "it is because they wear less clothes and want the cushions for warmth."

  "Well, at any rate," said she, as she put a match to the gas-ring on the hearth which supported a handsome copper kettle, "we are on the same plane in the matter of chairs, so we have one agreement to start with."

  She drew up a light mahogany armchair, and, seating herself, gave her attention to the kettle; and while it was heating she continued the discussion with a whimsical mock-seriousness that Tom found quite pleasant. In fact, there was no denying that Mrs. Schiller’s personality was distinctly attractive if one could forget the atrocities of her painting; and Tom, who liked women well enough so long as they did not want him to marry them, realized with some surprise that he was finding the little informal function quite agreeable (though he was still resolved that this visit should "close the incident"). The excellent China tea was brewed to perfection, the table appointments, including the kettle, were pleasant to look on, and his hostess’s bright flippancies kept him mildly amused.

  Presently the conversation reverted to the subject of painting, and Tom ventured to seek some solution of the mystery that had perplexed him.

  "Have you always painted in the modernist manner?" he asked.

  "Always!" she repeated with a smile. "I haven’t always painted at all. It is a completely new venture on my part, and it came about quite by chance; a very odd chance it seems when I look back on it. A girl friend of mine asked me to go with her to a show at a gallery in Leicester Square; an exhibition of works of modern masters. I didn’t want to go, because I had never felt the least interest in pictures and didn’t know anything about them, but she insisted that I must go because everybody was talking about these pictures, and the art critics declared they were the latest discoveries in art.

  "So I went, and, to my surprise, I was tremendously impressed and interested. The pictures were so different from anything that I had ever seen before; so quaint and curious. They looked as if they might have been done by children. I was really charmed with them; so much so that I decided to try if I could do anything like them. And I found that I could. Isn’t it strange? I had never drawn or painted before, and yet I found it quite easy to do. Don’t you think it is very remarkable?"

  "Very remarkable," Tom agreed quite sincerely, though not quite in the sense that she meant. For him the mystery was now completely solved, though there were other matters concerning which he was curious.

  "Do you send in to the exhibitions?" he asked. "It is rather necessary if you expect to make a living by your work."

  "I haven’t actually exhibited," she replied, "but I am getting a collection together in readiness, and I go to see the modernist shows to see what sort of prices works of my kind fetch, or, at least, are offered at. They seem to me rather high, but I notice that very few of the pictures are sold."

  "Yes," said Tom, "there are not many picture-buyers nowadays, and the few picture-lovers who do buy mostly prefer work of the traditional kind. But your best plan would be to try some of the dealers who specialize in modernist works. They would know what your pictures are worth in their market, and they might be able to give you some useful advice. They might even buy some of your works—at their own price, of course."

  "That’s an excellent idea," said she. "I will certainly try it. Perhaps you could give me the names of one or two dealers. Would you?"

  Tom shook his head. "My dealers would be no good for you. They are old-fashioned fellows who deal in old-fashioned work. No modernist stuff for them. They’d be afraid of frightening away their regular customers."

  "That doesn’t sound very encouraging," she remarked with a wry smile.

  "I suppose it doesn’t," Tom admitted; and in the pause that followed it was suddenly borne in on him tha
t these comradely confidences were not very favourable to the "closure of the incident." And then, in the vulgar but convenient phrase, he "put the lid on it."

  "You appear," said he, "to work exclusively in water colour. Do you find that more suitable than oil?"

  "The truth is," she replied, "that I have never tried oil painting because I don’t quite know how to go about it; I mean as to mixing the paint and putting it on with those queer-looking stiff-haired brushes. But I should like to paint in oil, or at least give the medium a trial." She paused for a few moments. Then in an insinuating tone she continued, "I wonder whether my kind and helpful neighbour would come to my assistance."

  Tom looked at her apprehensively. "I suppose I’m the neighbour," said he, "but I don’t quite see what you want me to do."

  "It is only a modest request," she urged, "but I should be so grateful if, sometime when you are at work, you would let me come and look on."

  "But to what purpose?" he demanded. "My painting and your painting are not the same kind of thing at all."

  "I know," she agreed. "But, after all, modernist painters use the same materials and implements as artists of the more old-fashioned type. Now, you know all about the methods of oil painting, and, if I could watch you when you are working, I should see how you do it, and then I should be able, with a little practice, to do it myself. Won’t you let me come once or twice? I promise not to waste your time or interrupt you by talking."

  Tom looked at the smiling, wheedlesome face and realized that he was cornered. It would be churlish to refuse, and indeed, utterly unlike him to withhold any help from a fellow artist, no matter how bad. But still it was necessary for him to "mind his eye." It would never do to give this enterprising young woman the run of his studio.

  "When I am at work," he said at length, "I like to be alone and concentrate on what I am doing, but I shall be very pleased to give you a demonstration of the technique of oil painting. What I would suggest is that you bring in one of your pictures, and that I make a copy of it in oil, while you look on. Then you can ask as many questions as you please and I will give you any tips as to the management of the medium that seem necessary. How will that do?"

  "But it is the very thing that I would have asked for if I had dared. I am delighted, and more grateful than I can tell you. Perhaps you will let me know when I may come for the demonstration."

  "I will," he replied. "It won’t be for a day or two, but when I have finished the picture that I have in hand, I will drop a note into your letter-box giving one or two alternative dates. And I hope," he continued as he rose to depart, "that you will like the medium and do great things in it."

  As he re-entered his studio and occupied himself in cleaning his palette and brushes and doing a few odd jobs, he cogitated profoundly on the events of the afternoon. One thing was plain to him; the "closure of the incident" was "off." The good lady had fairly taken possession of him. Already she had established herself definitely as an acquaintance, and he saw clearly that the next interview would put her on the footing of a friend. It was an unfortunate affair, but he must make the best of it and continue to "mind his eye"—if the word "continue" was strictly applicable.

  As to the woman herself, he was completely puzzled. He could make nothing of her. Was she simply an impostor or did she suffer from some extraordinary delusion? The plain and obvious facts were that she could not draw at all, that her water-colour painting was that of an untalented child and that she seemed to have no artistic ideas or the capacity to invent a subject. But was it possible that she had some kind of artistic gifts which he was unable to gauge? The supposition seemed to be negatived by her own admission that she had never felt any interest in pictures. For the outstanding characteristic of real talent is the early age at which it shows itself. Pope "lisped in numbers, for the numbers came"; Mozart and Handel were accomplished musicians, and even composers, when they were small children; John Millais was a masterly draughtsman at the age of five; Bonington died in the twenties with a European reputation; and so with Fred Walker, Chantrey, and a host of others. No, a person who reaches middle age without showing any sign of artistic aptitude is certainly not a born artist.

  The only possible conclusion seemed to be that Mrs. Schiller was either a rank impostor or the subject of some strange delusion; and at that he had to leave it. After all, it was not his affair. His concern was to see that he was not involved in any entanglements; and the lady’s masterful ways promised to give him full occupation in that respect without troubling about her artistic gifts.

  IV. MR. VANDERPUYE

  There are persons, unfortunately too common, who seem to be incapable of doing anything well. Impatience to get the job finished and inability to concentrate on the doing, beget slipshod work and faulty results. Conversely, there are some more happily constituted who cannot bring themselves to do anything badly. Of this type Tom Pedley was a representative specimen. To the simplest task he gave his whole attention and would not leave it until it was done to a finish, even though the task was no more than the washing of a teacup or the polishing of a spoon. Hence the demonstration of oil technique, though he secretly regarded it as a waste of time, was carried out with as much thoroughness as if Mrs. Schiller had been a pupil of the highest promise.

  "I have brought two of my pictures," the lady explained when she made her appearance on the appointed day; "the Symphony in Green and Blue the Adam and Eve subject. Which do you think will be the more suitable?"

  "May as well do them both," replied Tom, "as one has some sort of shape in it and the other hasn’t. We’ll begin with the Symphony. You seem to have used mighty big brushes and kept the paper uncommonly wet."

  "Oh, I didn’t use any brushes at all. I just soaked the paper in water, mixed up some emerald oxide and French ultramarine in separate saucers and poured it on in long streaks. When I tilted the board, of course, the streaks ran together and produced those subtle gradations of colour that I have tried to express by the word Symphony."

  "I see," said Tom with an appreciative grin. "Deuced good method. Labour-saving, too. Well, you can’t do that sort of thing in oil. Got to do the blending with the brush unless you work with the knife. I’ll show you."

  He set up the "Symphony" on the easel with a fourteen by twelve canvas by its side. Then, on a clean palette, he squeezed out three blobs of colour, emerald oxide, French ultramarine and flake white, and, taking up the palette knife, mixed one or two tints to match those of the "Symphony."

  "We’ll follow your methods as far as we can in oil," said he. "We begin with streaks of the deepest colour, add lighter tints at the edges, and then paint them into one another to produce the subtle gradations. Like this."

  He fell to work with a couple of large brushes, keeping an attentive eye on the "Symphony" and giving from time to time a few words of explanation as to the management of the brush and the mixing of the tints. At the end of a quarter of an hour’s work he had produced a copy of the "Symphony" which might have been a facsimile but for the difference in the medium. His pupil watched him and listened to his explanations without saying a word until he had finished. Then, as he stepped back and laid down his palette, she exclaimed:

  "How extraordinary! You’ve made a perfect copy; and so quickly, too. It is really wonderful; and it looks so easy."

  "Easy!" Tom repeated. "Of course it’s easy. Any—er—anyone" (he had nearly said "any fool") "can put streaks of colour on a canvas and paint their edges into one another. But, of course," he added hurriedly, "you’ve got to invent the streaks. Now we’ll have a go at Adam and Eve."

  This, however, presented more difficulty. Try as he would, he could not quite attain the childish effect of the original. His figures persisted in looking slightly human and even in differentiating themselves into a recognizable man and woman.

  "There," he said as he stepped back and regarded his performance with a grim smile, "I think that will do, though it isn’t a fair copy. I seem to have missed some o
f the ‘essential form,’ but that doesn’t matter. You see the method. And now, as a wind up, I’ll just show you how to work with the knife. That may suit you better than the brush."

  He placed on the easel a slab of millboard, and, taking a couple of small, thin-bladed, trowel-shaped knives, rapidly executed another rendering of the "Symphony," while his pupil watched with delighted surprise. Finally, he showed her how to clean the palette and wash the brushes, admonishing her that a tidy worker takes care of his tools and doesn’t waste his materials.

  "And now," he concluded, "you know all about it. Facility will come with practice, and the ideas you have already, so all you’ve got to do is to provide yourself with the materials and fire away."

  "I will certainly do that," said she. "But I can’t tell you how grateful I am." She came close up to him, looking earnestly in his face and laying her hands on his arms (and for one awful moment he thought she was going to kiss him) and exclaimed: "It was so kind of you to take all this trouble for a mere stranger. I think you are a perfect dear. But we aren’t really strangers, are we?"

  "Well," Tom admitted cautiously, "I’ve certainly seen you before."

  "Now, don’t be an old bear," she protested smilingly. "Seen me before, indeed! But never mind. You haven’t done with me yet. I want you to come with me to the artists’ colourman and show me what I must get for a start. You will do that for me, won’t you? Say yes, like a duck."

  "Can’t very well do that," objected Tom, "as I’ve never heard a duck say yes; but I’ll come to the shop with you and see that you don’t waste your money on foolishness. Might as well nip along now and get it done with. Shop’s close by. Only take us a few minutes. What do you say?"

  She said "yes" with a sly and very understanding smile; and Tom realized too late that his studied gruffness, so far from fending her off, had only put her on a more intimate footing. So they went forth together, and when Tom had superintended her purchases and seen her provided with the bare necessaries for a beginning, he took up the bulky parcel and escorted her home; and as he handed her the parcel and said "good-bye" on her doorstep, the effusiveness of her gratitude made him thankful that the farewells were exchanged in a public thoroughfare.