The artist continued: "Fortunately, the subject is one peculiarly adapted to my genius. For instance: the desert of Sahara is a dead level of sand. It is a perfect type of severe simplicity in the highest sense. It exhibits no common display of gorgeous colors, such as poor artists and the ignorant crowd rejoice in. As far as the eye can see, there is a serene stretch of yellow sand, without even a blade of grass to break its awful immensity." (The artist, being on his favorite theme, took his pipe out of his mouth for the first time, and spoke with warmth.) "Look at that bit of desert, now. Does it not convey a perfect idea of solitude and desolation?"
Marcus Wilkeson glanced at about ten feet of straight yellow paint (which was all of the desert of Sahara not rolled up in the canvas), and said that it did--which was perfectly true.
"There are one hundred feet more, which you don't see, just like it. Another artist would have put in an oasis, or a stray hyena, or the bleached bones of an unfortunate traveller. I did not. Why? Another would have worked up a sunset, or a moonrise, or a thunder storm, to give variety to the sky. I did not. Why? The sky over my desert is an uninterrupted blue. There is not even a bird in it. There is nothing, in short, either on the ground or in the air, to take away the mind of the spectator, for one moment, from the sublime idea of a desert--an object which, considered aesthetically, is one of the grandest in the universe. This is severe simplicity. It is the highest school of Art."
"And the cheapest," observed Tiffles; "which is an important consideration when you have an acre or two of canvas to paint. It would cost a deal more to put in the sun and moon, travelling caravans, and other objects of interest, here and there."
"Incidentally it may be the cheapest," said Patching. "But that is a question for capitalists, and not for artists to determine. True Art never thinks of the expense."
"It always seemed to me to be the easiest school of Art," said Marcus Wilkeson. "I suppose, now, that you can dash off twenty or thirty rods of this a day."
Patching smiled with a lofty pity. "So I can. Not because it is the easiest, though--far from it; but because I happen to have a genius for quick and sure touches. You, not being a professional artist, think the execution of that scrap of desert and sky an easy matter. Perhaps you fancy that you could do it." There was the least infusion of satire in the artist's tone.
"Oh, no!" replied Marcus Wilkeson, who ever shrank from wounding the self-love of a fellow creature. "I am not rash enough to suppose that I could do it. I merely observed that it seemed--to my inexperienced eyes--an easy matter. A few strokes of yellow paint here, for sand, and a few strokes of blue paint there, for sky. But I am not even an amateur, and so my opinion goes for nothing."
"I admire your frankness," said Patching. "Now let me convince you practically. Be good enough to stand near this window with me."
Marcus moved to the spot indicated by the artist.