“The flies! is that all? Swear the spiders in special constables next time,” cried Gatty. “We shall win the day;” and light shone into his hazel eye.
“The world will not always put up with the humbugs of the brush, who, to imitate Nature, turn their back on her. Paint an out o' door scene indoors! I swear by the sun it's a lie! the one stupid, impudent lie that glitters among the lies of vulgar art, like Satan among Belial, Mammon and all those beggars.
“Now look here; the barren outlines of a scene must be looked at, to be done; hence the sketching system slop-sellers of the Academy! but the million delicacies of light, shade, and color can be trusted to memory, can they?
“It's a lie big enough to shake the earth out of her course; if any part of the work could be trusted to memory or imagination, it happens to be the bare outlines, and they can't. The million subtleties of light and color; learn them by heart, and say them off on canvas! the highest angel in the sky must have his eye upon them, and look devilish sharp, too, or he shan't paint them. I give him Charles Gatty's word for that.”
“That's very eloquent, I call it,” said Jones.
“Yes,” said poor old Groove, “the lad will never make a painter.”
“Yes, I shall, Groove; at least I hope so, but it must be a long time first.”
“I never knew a painter who could talk and paint both,” explained Mr. Groove.
“Very well,” said Gatty. “Then I'll say but one word more, and it is this. The artifice of painting is old enough to die; it is time the art was born. Whenever it does come into the world, you will see no more dead corpses of trees, grass and water, robbed of their life, the sunlight, and flung upon canvas in a studio, by the light of a cigar, and a lie—and—”
“How much do you expect for your picture?” interrupted Jones.