Читать книгу Things That Have Interested Me - Arnold Bennett - Страница 6

Table of Contents

I was walking along the road from Cascaes to Mont Estoril when an Englishman passing in the opposite direction called out to me, with a wave of the hand heavenwards: "Rather like a Bonington sky, that, don't you think?" A nice kind of greeting to get in Portugal! I had spoken to this Englishman only once before. I knew nothing whatever of him, except that, having questioned me about something curious in my sketching-case, he was interested in water-colour apparatus and was probably an amateur himself. I stopped, and in two seconds he told me that he was the possessor of a couple of Boningtons. I marched close up to him and said in an intimate tone: "Do you mean to say that you've got two Boningtons?" That I was impressed delighted him. I demanded how long he had had them, where he bought them, and even what he paid for them. He answered quite freely, and gave me a tip about a certain dealer.

"And what's more," he said, "I think Bonington's the finest English landscape artist, bar none. Better than de Wint, better than Girtin, better than Turner."

"But what about Crome?"

The suggestion shook him.

"Ah! I meant water-colourists."

Unfortunately I never thought to put him to the test of Cotman.

However, he could scarcely have belonged to the secret society of Cotmanists, or he would not have placed Bonington first. I once went into an artist's studio and said casually, indicating a sepia sketch on the distant opposite wall: "Is that a Cotman?" It was. I needed no further credential. A bond was created. (Similarly will a bond be created if you ask a man where is the finest modern English prose and he replies: "In The Revolution in Tanner's Lane.") To my taste, finer water-colours by Cotman are hidden in portfolios upstairs in the British Museum than any that Turner did in his glittering maturity. I cannot forget my corroding disappointment when I first saw at Agnew's a collection of the more celebrated Turner pieces, such as "The Red Righi." True, Turner's water-colours are a proof of the absurdity of the maxim that a good water-colour is an accident; but they are far too virtuous—in the sense of virtuosity. They amount to a circus. Delicate as they are, they bang everything with such a prodigious bang that after seeing them you feel the need of aspirin and repose. Now even Turner did not know more perfectly and profoundly what he was doing with brushes and tints on a bit of damp paper than Cotman. Cotman puts the washes on once for all—and such washes—but it does not occur to him to give a "performance." Cotmans are dear; they will be dearer; I have a hope that buyers of Turners for the rise will drop money.

My friend on the road held, and I agreed, that Copley Fielding would soon be coming a cropper in the sale-rooms. He recounted how a Copley Fielding had recently fetched twelve hundred guineas at Christie's and immediately been resold on the spot for fifteen hundred. I remember buying a good average Copley Fielding in Brighton for five pounds. A pleasing thing, but extravagantly accomplished. Copley Fielding grew into a performer, like Turner, though qua performer he must not be mentioned in the same breath with the mysterious man who acknowledged a superior in Girtin. It was fortunate for Turner that Girtin died early. He might have knocked spots off Turner. And while I am about the matter, I may as well say that I doubt whether Turner was well-advised in having his big oil-paintings hung alongside of Claude's in the National Gallery. The ordeal was the least in the world too severe for them. Still, I would not deny that Turner was a very great person. Bits of the foregoing came into my conversation with the man on the road. He was a collector. "I go in for all these old fellows." We catalogued most of the big British names in water-colour, threading them rapidly on a string of appreciation. In three minutes we had esteemed the old fellows, and we went on our ways full of an obscure and naïve pleasure in the encounter. Hobbyists are very simple-minded. I did not know his name, nor whether he was an opponent of the "insidious policy of mine nationalisation," nor whether his own sketches were worse even than mine, nor anything about him except that he was a great prophet of Bonington in Portugal. As such he had established himself in my heart.

Nevertheless there was also a worm in my heart. He "went in for all those old fellows"; but I had not dared to ask him about the new fellows, who were painting and expecting customers at the very moment of our conversation. Was he equally enthusiastic for the new fellows? Or did he imitate in the graphic arts Mr. Augustine Birrell's confessed practice of marking the publication of a new book by reading an old one? Would he have bought Boningtons while Bonington was alive and innovating? I was afraid to risk the test. Not that I would have tried him too hard—with the newest names and the most impudent processes. No, I would have been content to mention stars already fixed. But suppose I had asked him about Cezanne's water-colours (though I am not mad for them), and he had replied that he seemed to have heard the name? Suppose I had asked him about Rodin's water-colours, and he had lowered the portcullis of his collector's face? He might have disapproved of Wilson Steer's water-colours, though they are as sure of immortality as any Bonington that was ever collected. He might have ruined our fragile acquaintance by declaring that Brabazon was a passing fad of certain professional painters who wanted a foil and a toy. I could not have borne that.

Brabazon in his old age became the prince of sketchers-from-nature; but sketchers-from-nature were characteristically slow in perceiving this. For years, despite the grim and august praise of Mr. John Sargent, Brabazon's sketches could be bought anywhere for twenty guineas. I do believe that I was the last man to buy a Brabazon at that price. The transaction occurred a few days before the first appearance of Brabazons at Christie's. About a dozen sketches were catalogued together in a sale. Dealers protested that they had no idea what the stuff might fetch. The stuff might fetch anything or nothing. It had never had an "official" price. I commissioned a dealer to go up to twenty guineas apiece on my behalf. The stuff went for fifties and sixties; and, like a good many other people, I was both delighted and disappointed. I wanted Brabazons to rise; but I wanted Brabazons. Brabazon should be the model to all sketchers-from-nature. He didn't formally "paint"; he sketched. His aim was the general effect. In my opinion his "Taj Mahal" is the finest water-colour sketch ever done. He probably did it in about a quarter of an hour. It is a marvel of simplification, and simplification is what Mr. Clement K. Shorter, if he sketched, would undoubtedly term "the great desideratum" of the sketcher-from-nature. It is the most difficult thing in that world. It is the kill-joy of my existence. The captain of a passenger ship which had called at Oporto once told me that he was summoned in the night to a raving passenger. This passenger had been visiting the incredible "wine-lodges" of the district during the day. He lay in an upper berth kicking the ceiling and exclaiming in an agonised voice: "Millions of bottles! Millions of bottles!" Similarly, but with more decency and perhaps still more divine despair, may I be heard crying in the night, after a day of inglorious sketching: "Simplification! Simplification!"