As a sequel to this tale: a year or two ago at a picture shop of the second rate—the kind that is hung with framed canvases to the ceiling—I saw in the window, in a gorgeous and very vulgar frame, one of those pictures that we had carried unsuccessfully along the Avenue so long ago. On a card in large letters was printed, “One of the greatest landscapes of John Twachtman.” I went in and inquired the price. It was thirty-five hundred dollars!
Twachtman painted such exquisite small things. It made no difference to him—the size, shape, or texture of his material—he could always conjure up an idea that fitted it perfectly. Whenever I was working at a large decoration he would come up to my studio and carry away the triangular pieces of canvas that inevitably come off a work of this kind. I suppose the pictures he made on them have sold for more, since he died, than all of my decorations put together.
He looked like a faun; one would expect, upon moving back his hair, to find some furry ears. He had the nature of a faun. There was no place for him in the nineteenth century; he would have been a normal creature in the Golden Age. His simplicity of mind showed in his work. I have stood before one of his landscapes and thought: “How did you do it? How could you see the thing so simply?” My mind is always cluttered up with details, but, for him, they just did not exist. I cannot imagine John in an airplane; it would have been incongruous. His place was in the fields, living on berries and herbs, refreshing himself at the brooks and streams, as he went his merry way, here and there catching and keeping for the world a fleeting glimpse of Nature as she showed her secret self to him. John Twachtman is as good an example as I know, of my own definition of an artist—”one who shall show you the stars during the daytime.”
All the world is striving to manufacture what the people want, but an artist is in an entirely different position. There is no value to a picture at the pawnbroker’s. You can borrow practically nothing on a Corot; you can get more on the frame than on the canvas.
One day when I was very hard up, a young architect from Paris who was building the New Amsterdam Theater here telephoned me that Mr. Finn had recommended me to do some work for him. It appears that he had made a contract with a certain painter for a series of panels representing the development of the North River. Although the contract had been running two years and the theater was to open in two weeks, the painter had only half finished the work. There was nothing to do, as the theater must open, and Mr. Finn had told him I was the only man who could do them in a hurry, but he would have to pay a stiff price. I asked him what I thought was fair (I never know what my work is worth), and choosing the subjects, running from Eric the Red to the last international yacht race, I began.
I was living at that time in a studio which had formerly been a stable, with a cement floor graded to the central hole, where there was an outlet to the sewer. Just before this the sewer had become stopped up and, as it had rained heavily, the water had gathered on the studio floor. There was no time to fix it; I had only two weeks to do six panels, each one more than five feet long, and could not have the plumbers messing around. Of course, I had no money to hire another place to work. I had a time! Every morning I raced to the Library to look up the historical facts, and then came home to make my compositions. All this while there were four inches of water on a level all over the floor, a line of bricks to walk from my easel to my painting table, and another line from the table back to where I could get a point of view of my work. Of necessity, from the door to the bed was a third brick pathway. Every now and then, in the excitement of creation, I would fall off of my improvised bridges and drench my feet. But youth is lucky and I escaped pneumonia—also I finished the panels in time.
At another time in my life, I found myself with a lot of pictures and no money. There were four people depending upon me, no work, and nothing I could realize upon. On awakening one morning I discovered that the entire capital of the group was one nickel, which I found in a baby’s bank. This had been robbed sundry times before, but the little coin had somehow been missed. It was necessary to do something, and that immediately. A friend who had dined with us the evening before upon a stew made of thirty-five cents’ worth of beef neck and some potatoes had suggested that a certain elderly banker, the silent partner of a well-known financier, had just “turned down” a proposition made to him for an overmantel decoration. The artist had asked too much and my friend suggested that I go and make a bid.
The banker’s office was away downtown, and, arrayed in white shoes and hat and my best white serge suit from London (it was one of the hottest days of the year), I marched out with my nickel in my pocket. At that time I was living up on Ninety-sixth Street, so I sauntered casually over to the subway station, pushed the coin nonchalantly through the grating of the ticket office. The man promptly shoved it back with the curt remark, “No good.” I let it fall on the floor; it dropped with a dull thud and I threw it angrily away, not thinking so much of my own disappointment, but disgusted with the person who had been so cruel as to cheat a baby by putting a lead nickel into its bank.
However, I still had a journey to make, and gazed about, looking for an idea. My eye fell upon the shop of my barber where I was in the habit of having my hair out. Going in, I asked him to lend me some change. My clothes and my manner must have deceived him, for he pressed me to take a dollar, although I asked only for a dime and said that I would not be responsible for returning more. Armed with the ten cents, I was on my way.
Mr. Lungren, for it was he, was in his office, received my proposal with enthusiasm, and I got my order. He was just about to dismiss me politely, when I said I must have one third cash on the spot. He asked why, evidently thinking I did not trust him, but I replied with Bill Nye’s well-known story of going into a shabby little restaurant, ordering two boiled eggs, and receiving a check for one dollar. Upon a demand for the reason for such an exorbitant charge, the proprietor replies: