International studio (25.1905)

naphtha. No prescription, my dear sir, will spare
painstaking. I use the paint as it comes from the
tubes. If oil is used at all, it ought at least to be
very intimately mixed with the paints. The most
important thing to do is to fathom your subject, to
study it thoroughly inside and outside, mentally
and materially, in every detail. But these young-
sters have done away with all that. They call me
bookish, and an old Tory, and threw me on to the
scrap-iron heap."
" But they found you red-hot and about to be
recast when you came out with your Aw7zw<2&-
ZW7Z some twenty years ago."
" Whatever be the merit of /A3/ picture," His
Excellency said, "I am sure that I tried to pre-
cipitate /?W72, and not to dissolve the objects 272 the
smoke that was nearly blinding me. I fought
against that smoke and darkness, and draughts,
and the danger of being rolled out in sheet-iron,
as against dragons. I killed them instead of letting
them kill my picture and me. It is a mistake to
try to be impressionistic. The right thing is to
use your eyes and to render everything as well-
defined as possible—within its atmosphere. The
2772^7-^2<772 will look out for itself So will idealism,
symbolism, and all these beautiful things. It will
sneak into your canvas like a dog, not prevail like
a demon. The more you trust your eye, the surer
it will work for you, the nearer it will lead you to
nature, and that, my dear sir, is where you want
to be."
I said: "Your Excellency is gifted with a pair
of eyes such as few can boast the possession."
Behind a pair of spectacles they looked like
microscopes. And I really imagined that I could
see the screws.
, " My eyes," said the old man, tapping his temples
fondly with the tip of his finger, " yes, thank my
stars ! they are as good as my friend Meissonier's.
He is the only man that could see as well, or
nearly as well, as I can." And he added, woefully,
" I nearly lost one the other day : my foot slipped,
and I fell against the fender. And this other one
was imperilled when I fell into the cellar at
Fredrich's (an hotel and wine-merchant's place)
some months ago. I wanted to order some cordial
for New Year's Eve, and I had to pass the vestibule
which was dark. If the people in the house had
not discovered me in time, or if I had swooned, I
would never have come out of that hole alive.
That is what the surgeon told me who mended
my scalp."
His Excellency was strongly moved by the mere
reminiscence of that accident, which had been the
258

talk of the town. He was eighty-four years of age
then, but lived on like a young bachelor. He
favoured the nocturnal where he hunted after
the illustrated papers—amongst which he admired
" Punch " most. But it was which replenished
his veins and gave him the elasticity of youth. He
has been seen, when presiding over some corpora-
tion, coolly producing one of those broad car-
penter's pencils which bear his name, and sketching
some quaint chandelier, or even a couple of oysters,
in a picturesque manner of handling. His legs
might be dangling a foot above the ground; his
lips might be puffed up in his catlike eagerness to
catch the light flitting over the surface. But there
was a dignity about him which did not give way to
the Emperor himself. And that, in Germany, is
saying everything.
His immense up in the air, was covered
with old canvases. One side was totally taken up
by the historic picture, Z7*A^7*2ir/& 2*A? <2722? ^2k
2772 Aw A<22'2'Z It was
begun some forty years ago, and the central figure,
that of the king, is still blank.
" It will never be finished," the said,
his eyes gleaming vindictively. " I meant it to be
a ^22^22722* to my painting of AaAZ 2?/
The one was Frederick's greatest reverse,
the other his greatest success. But my Z?wA$;'7v,%
was badly treated in the old castle. They hung
it in the scullery, and I have lost heart."
"It now hangs above the present Emperor's
writing-table," said 1.
"Yes, so it does, and the Emperor led me there
himself to show it me, carrying the chandelier with
his own hand, the lackeys standing round like wet
poodles. They had that picture all to themselves
for generations. I suppose they could not under-
stand it. Most Germans cannot. We are swamped
with unculture from the East. And if this goes
on, I do not know what will become of us."
" But you might put in the 27722: figure missing."
" I have been asked to do so by kings, cabinet
ministers, and millionaires. The Emperor Frederick,
when he was Crown Prince, and the Princess have
looked that picture over, and so they have this
one-"
He pointed to a smaller canvas representing the
funeral of the victims of the Revolution of 1848—
a lugubrious sketch !
The HZ772eA^7- (a title which he objected to, not
beginning to feel so very old, even when dire death
came at last) will not part with it for any money.
He will not pay homage to that sentimentality and
coffee-house fanaticism which was rampant under