Читать книгу Simple Stories from "Punch" - Arthur Hammond Marshall - Страница 5
ОглавлениеTHE ARTIST
Once there was an artist called Brown Jukes who painted very pretty pictures especially of ladies, and when anybody wanted to have their wives or their daughters painted and could afford it they generally asked him if he would mind doing it, because he made them look prettier than they really were, but they said he was the only artist who could make them look natural.
Well one day a friend of Brown Jukes called Carnaby Boot who wrote about pictures in the newspapers said to him well Brown Jukes you may make plenty of money but you are not much of an artist, and he said why not?
And he said why because your pictures are too pretty, I am sure I should be ashamed to paint pictures like that.
And Brown Jukes said well you couldn't, could you?
And he said well perhaps not, but I know all about pictures and write about them in the newspapers, and of course really good artists only paint ugly pictures now.
Well Brown Jukes knew a lot of artists who did that, though he didn't really care for their pictures, so he thought there was something in it, and when an Earl asked him if he would mind painting his wife he thought he would paint her ugly for a change just to show everybody he was really a good artist.
So he did that, and the Earl's wife was fairly old and fat, and she had never been pretty even when she was young, but the Earl had married her because she had plenty of money and he had spent all his own, and it was really she who was paying to have the picture done before she got too fat and old altogether.
Well Brown Jukes quite enjoyed painting her and not having to make her pretty which he was rather tired of doing except with ladies who really were, it was such a strain on him, and he painted her as ugly as he could but he wouldn't let her see the picture until it was finished. And he wouldn't let the Earl see it either, and the Earl was rather annoyed but he knew that Brown Jukes had plenty of money so he didn't say much.
Brown Jukes quite enjoyed painting her.
And the only person that Brown Jukes showed the picture to was Carnaby Boot, and when he saw it he said well Brown Jukes it is a masterpiece and I didn't think you could do it. And he promised to write about it in the newspapers, and Brown Jukes was very pleased and he said now people will see what a great artist I am really, and they will leave off saying that my pictures are like the lids of chocolate boxes.
Well the Royal Academy was quite pleased to have the picture in their exhibition because they had become rather tired of having only pretty pictures and people saying they were behindhand, and they had been having quite a lot of ugly ones lately. And Carnaby Boot wrote in the newspapers and said it was the best picture in the Academy and it was a good deal owing to him that Brown Jukes had painted it. And a lot of people who didn't know any better laughed at the picture but they said oh well if she is like that I suppose he couldn't help it but I shouldn't like to be married to her myself.
But when the Earl saw the picture he didn't laugh and his wife didn't either, and they wrote to Brown Jukes and said if he didn't give them back the money they had paid him for the picture they would have a trial about it and the judge would make him.
Well Brown Jukes wouldn't give back the money so they had a trial about it. And by that time the Academy was shut for the year so they could have the picture there to look at. And when the Judge saw it he laughed, and he said it is really rather funny, did you say it was in Punch? and they said no it was in the Academy.
And he said do you mean the Edinburgh Academy, because that is where I was at school? and they said no the Royal Academy.
And the Judge said oh I don't know anything about that and I have never been there, well we must get on with this trial, tell the Earl's wife to stand up beside the picture, and if she is really like several balloons stuck together and has hands like two hams I shall tell the jury that Mr. Brown Jukes needn't give back the money, but if she isn't like that he will have to.
Well the Earl objected to that because he said he didn't want his wife made fun of, it was quite bad enough as it was. And the Judge said well I think there is something in that you mustn't think you can have it all your own way here just because you are an Earl, judges are much more important than Earls, but I don't believe in making ladies uncomfortable even when they are ugly. I will tell you what we will do. I suppose your wife won't mind showing us her hands will she? She can stand behind a screen and stick out her hands, and then we shall see whether Mr. Brown Jukes has painted them properly or not.
So the Earl's wife did that, and her hands were rather fat but they were well manicured and had plenty of rings on them, and the Judge had them measured and the hands in the picture too and they weren't the same size at all, besides one hand in the picture being several sizes larger than the other, and the Earl's wife hadn't got a single wart on her knuckles but all the knuckles in the picture had one at least. So that settled it, but just to make sure they asked a gentleman called Mr. Slumber to give evidence, and he said he had been making gloves all his life but if he had had to make gloves for a lady like the one in the picture it would have taken the skin of a whole reindeer.
So then the Judge was very much down on Brown Jukes, and he said he had a good mind to send him to prison to teach him that he couldn't go on like that. He said he had never heard of him before but he had been told that up till now he had painted quite pretty pictures, so he would deal leniently with him. He would have to give back the money he had had for the picture and pay the Earl a hundred pounds for hurting his wife's feelings, and he hoped it would be a lesson to him.
Well Brown Jukes didn't mind that at all, because a rich American bought the picture for much more than the Earl had paid him for it, and Carnaby Boot wrote an article to say that Brown Jukes was quite as good an artist as Sir Joshua Reynolds and he wasn't sure he wasn't even better, and it was time that pictures like that were stopped from leaving the country.
And soon after that Carnaby Boot came to Brown Jukes and he said I am rather tired of praising ugly pictures and I am going to make pretty ones the fashion again, so if you would like to go back to painting them you can.
So Brown Jukes did that, and by this time he was so famous that he could charge twice as much for his pictures as he had done before, and he made them prettier than ever and pleased everybody.
