18. The Masterpiece
I ONCE told a young artist to attempt no masterpiece. The thing cannot be done. The moment you think of doing a masterpiece you are befooled. Providence does not allow you to arrange anything of that kind. All you must do is paint with a generous heart—paint colour—and leave to the next generation the selection of your masterpiece. The painter, above all men, must be himself, without any regard for the world’s judgment. Do not be deceived: Time will decide the masterpiece—Time will destroy it!
FROM out the ageless oceans in the west,
Where lazily the gods of new worlds rise
And stretch their mighty limbs across the skies—
Insatiate giants roused from out long rest—
Uprose a Titan whose dark arms and breast
Blackened the sea and drew the gull’s shrill cries;
In his dark head he rolled his gloating eyes
And kept his cruel lips together pressed.
The sea that bore him was the eternal pit;
Into its depths he threw the dreams of men—
Threw with one stroke ten thousand tomes of rhyme,
As many works of art, each once deemed fit
To live. One was a masterpiece! Ah, then
These words came forth: I am the Tomb of Time!