“I have won every possible prize for painting and drawing, and the first picture I exhibited was the sensation of the year in art circles.”
“I remember it,” said Tysoe.
“Like my friend Logan, I am profoundly dissatisfied with the state of art in England, and though I am not an Englishman I have sufficient love for the country to wish to do my share in redeeming it. The first essential is a new technique, the second essential is a new spirit, and the third essential is sincerity.”
“Wonderfully true!” cried Tysoe. “Have some sherry. Wonderfully true! Now, take the ordinary man. He might feel all that, but would he dare to say it? No. That is why I, as an idealist, delight in the society of artists. You know where you are with them. Facts are facts with them.”
“I do like this sherry wine,” said Oliver, beginning to feel very comfortable in the warm luxury of the dining-room.
Logan kicked her under the table.
Feeling that more was expected of him, Mendel wound himself up again and went on:—
“Logan and I are going to hold an exhibition together. It will make a great stir, that is, if London is not altogether dead to sincerity. We think it is time that independence among artists was encouraged. Art must not be allowed to stop short at Calthrop——”
He stopped dead as he realized that the wall opposite him held half a dozen drawings by Calthrop. Logan rushed in:—
“Among real artists there is no rivalry. Art is not a competition. It is a constellation, like the Milky Way.”