Where Art Begins

by Hume Nisbet

Notwithstanding the constant snubbing to which he was subjected, Tintoretto was generous enough to be able to see and appreciate the good qualities of Titian a great deal better than the prosperous painter could see his beauties in return. If I had to express an opinion on the two men, I should say, ‘Tintoretto was the prince of painters, and the lucky man was Titian.’

Amongst Tintoretto’s few possessions was a picture by his tyrant, and Tintoretto had the meekness to copy it so carefully that he was pretty well pleased with it himself; so he hung them up together, with ‘original’ on the one and ‘copy’ on the other. The critics came in, as usual, to laugh or encourage the mighty but stricken heart with words like this: ‘Ah, if you could only paint like Titian!’ or, ‘Not the least degree like the original.’

Now, Tintoretto had his own opinion about his abilities, as we all have, I dare say, about ours, and he thought at nights, when he looked over his creations, that they were as good as Titian’s, and some of them better, if not nearly so well paid for; and after all these years a great number of sensible people have come to see and believe the same as the poor old man did of himself. Of course it wasn’t much consolation to him, this conviction, seeing it didn’t change the sour wine and black bread of his table into the Cyprus and cake of his rivals. No matter; the old man determined to have his joke, if he could have nothing else out of the gold-laden quadrupeds; so he wrote on the original ‘copy,’ and on the copy ‘original,’ and waited for the kindly-disposed visitors to come and comfort him, as usual.

‘Ah, a very far way behind, old man! it won’t do; you haven’t the go of the master in you. It wants strength and purity; the chiaroscuro is shallow as a summer stream. Why can’t you do it like this, now?’ pointing contemptuously from the original to the copy.

That was the method of judging pictures long ago, as it is now. If a man paints something that becomes the fashion, then he may do what he likes with his paper or canvas. A drunken smudge or a meaningless splash of the brush will be raved over as if the man had wrought a miracle.

And how a man gets into fashion is often as great an astonishment to himself as it is to the people coming after him.

One artist tried everything, from still life to a vision of the infernal regions, and still he could neither please the public nor pay for a respectable suit. One day, in a moment of frolic, he put a priest’s robe upon a brother artist, and painted him in that fashion, sending it into Paris, as usual, to stand in the windows for an indefinite time. A distinguished English art patron passed, looked at it, praised it, and gave the dealer the price asked for it.

Presto! the painter was famous, and found his vocation marked out for him for ever after; and I suppose now drinks absinthe and smokes cigarettes during the intervals of priest-making without a single care for to-morrow.

A man may paint and paint until he is white-headed, or has worn the hair off his scalp altogether, and all to no purpose. He may rack his brains until the cords crack to invent a new subject, and propitiate fickle fortune, and not be able to earn salt for his broth. He may produce picture after picture, with all the conceptive power of a Michael Angelo and the colouring of a Titian, and still be no nearer his aim. And, in a fit of desperation, he may dash off a piece of brainless rubbish, and for that hasty bit of caprice become the lion of the day.

And when he does succeed, has he not justice on his side if he curses the goddess Fame, and laughs to derision the senseless crowd of worshippers who have raised him up on high?