FullReads

But now each man had a comfortable chair, and filled it with shoulders hidden deep in its capacious depths, and legs straight out, only the arms and hands free enough to be within reach of the match-safe and thimble glasses. And with the ease and comfort of it all the talk itself slowed down to a pace more in harmony with that peace which passeth all understanding–unless you’ve a seat at the table.

The several masters of the outdoor school were now called up, their merits discussed and their failings hammered: Thaulow, Sorolla y Bastida, the new Spanish wonder, whose exhibition the month before had astonished and delighted Paris: the Glasgow school; Zorn, Sargent, Winslow Homer–all the men of the direct, forceful school, men who swing their brushes from their spines instead of their finger-tips–were slashed into and made mincemeat of or extolled to the skies. Then the “patty-pats,” with their little dabs of yellow, blue, and red, in imitation of the master Monet; the “slick and slimies,” and the “woollies”–the men who essayed the vague, mysterious, and obscure–were set up and knocked down one after the other, as is the custom with all groups of painters the world over when the never-ending question of technique is tossed into the middle of the arena.

Outdoor work next came into review and the discomforts and hardships a painter must go through to get what he is after, the Man from the Quarter defending the sit-by-the-fire fellows.

“No use making a submarine diver of yourself, Knight,” he growled. “Go and look at it and then come home and paint the impression and put something of yourself into it.”

Knight threw his head back and laughed. “I’d rather put the brook in–all of it.”

“But I don’t see why you’ve got to get soaked to the skin every time you want to make a sketch.”

“The soaking is what helps,” replied Knight, reaching for a match. “I like to feel I’m drink-some of it in. Then, when you’re right in the middle of it you don’t put on any airs and try to improve on what’s before you and spoil it with detail. One dimple on a girl’s cheek is charming; two–and you send for the doctor. And she’s so simple when you look into her face–I’m talking of the brook now, not the girl–and it’s so easy to put her down as she is, not the form and color only, but the mood in which you find her. A brook is worse, really, than your best girl in the lightning changes she can go through–laughing, crying, coquetting–just as the mood seizes her. There, for instance, hanging over your head is a ‘gray day”‘–and he pointed to one of his running-water sketches tacked to the wall. “I tried to cheer her up a little with touches of warm tones here and there–all lies–same kind you tell your own chickabiddy when she’s blue–but she wouldn’t have it and cried straight ahead for four hours until the sun came out; but I was through by that time and waded ashore. You can see for yourselves how unhappy she was.” He spoke as if the sketch was alive–and it was.

“But I always work out of doors that way,” he continued. “In winter up in Holland I sit in furs and wooden shoes, and often have to put alcohol in my water-cups to keep my colors from freezing. My big picture of ‘The Torrent’–the one in the Toledo Art Gallery–was painted in January, and out of doors. As for the brushwork, I try to do the best I can. I used to tickle up things I painted; some of the fellows at Julian’s believed in that, and so did Fleury and Lefebvre to some extent.”

“And when did you get over it?” I asked.

“When my father persuaded me to send a bold sketch to the Volney Club, which I had done to please myself, and which they hung and bought. So I said to myself: ‘Why trim, clean up, and make pretty a picture, when by simply painting what I love in nature in a free, breezy manner while my enthusiasm lasts–and it generally lasts until I get through;–sometimes it spills over to the next day–I please myself and a lot of people beside.”