AT THE PASTEL EXHIBITION.
IN THE ANTE-ROOM.
A Niece. Just one moment, Auntie, dear; do look and see what No. 295 is!
Her Aunt (with a Catalogue—and a conscience). Two hundred and ninety-five! Before we have even seen No. 1? No, my dear, no. Let us take things in their proper order—or not at all. (Perambulates the galleries for some minutes, refraining religiously from looking at anything but the numbers.) Ah, here it is—Number One! Now, ETHEL, I'm ready to tell you anything you please!
First Matter-of-Fact Person. Ah, here's another of the funny ones! [Is suddenly seized with depression.
Second M.-of-F.P. Y-yes. (Examines it gloomily.) What's it all about?
First M.-of-F.P. (blankly). Oh, well, it's a Pastel—I don't suppose it's meant to be about anything in particular, you know.
The Conscientious Aunt (before No. 129). "The Sprigged Frock"? Yes, that must be the one. I suppose those are meant for sprigs—but I can't make out the pattern. She might have made her hair a little tidier—such a bush! and I never do think blue and green go well together, myself.
[They come to a portrait of a charming lady in grey, by Mr. SOLOMON.
The Niece (with a sense of being on firm ground at last). Why, it's ELLEN TERRY! See if it isn't, Auntie.
The C.A. (referring to Catalogue).
"The leaves of Memory seemed to
Make a mournful rustling."
—that's all it says about it.
The Niece (finding a certain vagueness in this as a description). Oh! But there are no leaves—unless it means the leaves in the book she's reading. Still I think it must be ELLEN TERRY; don't you?
The C.A. (cautiously.) Well, my dear, I always think it's as well not to be too positive about a portrait till you know who it was painted from.
[The Matter-of-Fact Persons have arrived at a Pastel representing several green and yellow ladies seated undraped around a fountain, with fiddles suspended to the branches above.
Second M.-of-F.P. "Marigolds," that's called. I don't see any though. [With a sense of being imposed upon.
First M.-of-F.P. I think I do—yes, those orange spots in the green. They're meant for Marigolds, but there aren't very many of them, are there? And why should they all be sitting on the grass like that? Enough to give them their deaths of cold!
Second M.-of-F.P. I expect they've been bathing.
First M.-of-F.P. They couldn't all bathe in that fountain, and then what do you make of their bringing out their violins?
[The other M.-of-F. Person making nothing of it, they pass on.
An Irritable Philistine. Nonsense, Sir, you can't admire them, don't tell me! Do you mean to say you ever saw all those blues, and greens, and yellows, in Nature, Sir?
His Companion. I mean to say that that is how Nature appears to an eye trained to see things in a true and not a merely conventional light.
The I.P.. Then all I can say is, that if things ever appeared to me as unconventionally as all that, I should go straight home and take a couple of liver pills, Sir. I should!
First Frivolous Old Lady. Here's another of them, my dear. It's no use, we've got to admire it, this is the kind of thing you and I must be educated up to in our old age!
Second F.O.L. It makes me feel as if I was on board a yacht, that's all I know—just look at the perspective in that room, all slanted up!
First F.O.L. That's your ignorance, my dear, it's quite the right perspective for a Pastel, it's our rooms that are all wrong—not these clever young gentlemen.
[They go about chuckling and poking old ladylike fun at all the more eccentric Pastels, and continue to enjoy themselves immensely.
First M.-of-F.P. (they have come to a Pastel depicting a young woman seated on the Crescent Moon, nursing an infant). H'm—very peculiar. I never saw Diana represented with a baby before—did you?
Second M.-of-F.P. No—(hopefully)—but perhaps it's intended for somebody else. But it's not the place I should choose to nurse an infant in. It doesn't look safe, and it can't be very comfortable.
[They go on into a smaller room, and come upon a sketch of a small child, with an immense red mouth, and no visible nose, eyes, or legs.
First M.-of-F.P. "Little Girl in Black"—what a very plain child, to be sure!
Second M.-of-F.P. What there is of it; but it looks to me as if the artist had spent so much time over the black that he forgot to put in the little girl—he's got her mouth, though.
First M.-of-F.P.. Well, if it was my child, I should insist upon having the poor little thing more finished than that—even if I had to pay extra for it.
[A Superior Person has entered the West Gallery, accompanied by a Responsive Lady, who has already grasped the fact that a taste for Pastels is the sure sign of a superior nature.
The R.L.. Isn't that portrait quite wonderful! Wouldn't you take it for an oil-painting?
The S.P.. One might—without some experience—which is just where it is so entirely wrong. A Pastel has no business to imitate the technique of any other medium.
The R.L. Oh, I think you are so right. Because, after all, it is only a Pastel, isn't it? and it oughtn't to pretend to be anything else. (She looks reproachfully at the too ambitious Pastel.) And it isn't as if it was successful, either—it won't bear being looked into at all closely.
The S.P. You should never look at a Pastel closely; they are meant to be seen from a distance.
The R.L. (brightly). Or else you miss the effect? I quite see. Now, I like this—(indicating a vague and streaky little picture)—don't you? That's what I call a real Pastel.
The S.P. (screwing up his eyes). H'm! Yes. Perhaps. Clever-ish. Suggestive.
The R.L. (shocked). Oh, do you think so? I don't see anything of that kind in it—at least, I don't think it can be intentional.
The S.P. The beauty of Art is to suggest, to give work for the imagination.
The R.L. (recovering herself). I know so exactly what you mean—just as one makes all sorts of things out of the patches of damp on an old ceiling?
The S.P. Hardly. I should define Damp as the product of Nature—not Art.
The R.L. Oh, yes; if you put it in that way, of course! I only meant it as an illustration—the two things are really as different as possible. (Changes the subject.) They don't seem to mind what coloured paper they use for Pastels, do they?
The S.P. (oracularly). It is—er—always advisable in Pastels to use a tone of paper to harmonise as nearly as possible with the particular tone you—er—want. Because, you see, as the colour doesn't always cover the whole of the paper, if the paper which shows through is different in tone, it—er—
The R.L. Won't match? I see. How clever! (She arrives at a highly eccentric composition, and ventures upon an independent opinion.) Now I can't say I care for that—there's so very little done to it, and what there is is so glaring and crude, don't you think? I call it stupid.
The S.P. I was just about to say that it is the cleverest thing in the Exhibition—from an artistic point of view. No special interest in it, but the scheme of colour very harmonious—and very decorative.
The R.L. Oh, isn't it? That's just the right word for it—it is so decorative! and I do like the scheme of colour. Yes, it's very clever. I quite feel that about it. (With a gush.) It is so nice looking at pictures with somebody who has exactly the same tastes as oneself. And I always was fond of pastilles!
A Pavement Pastellist (to a friend). Well, JIM, I dunno what you think, but I call it a shellin' clean chucked away, I do. I come in yere,—hearin' as all the subjicks was done in chorks, same as I do my own—I come in on the chance o' pickin' up a notion or two as might be useful to me in my perfession. But, Lor, they ain't got a ideer among 'em, that they ain't! They ain't took the measure of the popilar taste not by a nundred miles, they 'aven't. Why, I ain't seen a single thing as I'd reckincile it to my conscience to perduce before my public—there ain't 'ardly a droring in the 'ole bloomin' show as I'd be seen settin' down beyind! Put down some of these 'ere Pastellers to do a mouse a nibbling at a candle, or a battle in the Soudang, or a rat snifin' at a smashed hegg, and you'd soon see they was no good! Precious few coppers 'ud fall into their 'ats, I'll go bail! [Exit indignantly, as Scene closes.