The Frenchman advanced a step or two, picked up the papers, and put them away slowly and carefully inside his pocket-book, looking the baronet full in the eyes as he did so. His teeth were hard set, and his breath came and went with a fuller rise and fall than usual, but otherwise there was nothing to betray the tempest of passion at work within him. When he had put his pocket-book away again, and still with his eyes bent full on the baronet, he said in a low, deep voice: ‘It is possible, Sir William, that we may some day meet again.’ Then with a nod, that might mean much or that might have no meaning at all, he turned and walked slowly out of the room.
The Frenchman found Nanette waiting for him in the corridor. ‘If you please, monsieur, my mistress desires to see you in her room immediately on a matter of much importance.’
‘Can it be that she is going to renew the offer of the six thousand francs?’ was the first question that Laroche asked himself. Checkmated at every turn though he had been, and though all his fine castles in the air had come tumbling about his ears, he began to hope that more might be saved from the wreck than had seemed probable only a few minutes ago, and it was not without a certain revival of spirits and a certain return to his old braggadocio manner that he followed Nanette to Madame De Vigne’s room. Just as he was passing the staircase window, the lightning’s lurid scroll unrolled itself for an instant against the walls of blackness outside. Laroche shuddered, he knew not why. A moment or two later he found himself once more in the presence of his wife. In the interim, the lamp had been lighted and the curtains drawn.
A FEW NOTES ON PERSIAN ART.
The limner’s art in Persia has few patrons, and the professional draughtsman of the present day in that country must needs be an enthusiast, and an art-lover for art’s sake, as his remuneration is so small as to be a mere pittance; and the man who can live by his brush must be clever indeed. The Persians are an eminently practical people, and buy nothing unless it be of actual utility; hence the artist has generally to sink to the mere decorator; and as all, even the very rich, expect a great deal for a little money, the work must be scamped in order to produce a great effect for a paltry reward. The artists, moreover, are all self-taught, or nearly so, pupilage merely consisting of the drudgery of preparing the canvas, panel, or other material for the master, mixing the colours, filling in backgrounds, varnishing, &c. There are no schools of art, no lectures, no museums of old or contemporary masters, no canons of taste, no drawing from nature or the model, no graduated studies, or system of any kind. There is, however, a certain custom of adhering to tradition and the conventional; and most of the art-workmen of Iran, save the select few, are mere reproducers of the ideas of their predecessors.
The system of perspective is erroneous; but neither example nor argument can alter the views of a Persian artist on this subject. Leaving aside the wonderful blending of colours in native carpets, tapestries, and embroideries, all of which improve by the toning influence of age, the modern Persian colourist is remarkable for his skill in the constant use of numerous gaudy and incongruous colours, yet making one harmonious and effective whole, which surprises us by its daring, but compels our reluctant admiration.
Persian pictorial art is original, and it is cheap; the wages of a clever artist are about one shilling and sixpence a day. In fact, he is a mere day-labourer, and his terms are, so many days’ pay for a certain picture. In this pernicious system of time-work lies the cause of the scamping of many really ingenious pieces of work.
As a copyist the Persian is unrivalled; he has a more than Chinese accuracy of reproduction; every copy is a fac-simile of its original, the detail being scamped, or the reverse, according to the scale of payment. In unoriginal work, such as the multiplication of some popular design, a man will pass a lifetime, because he finds it pay better to do this than to originate. This kind of unoriginal decoration is most frequent in the painted mirror cases and book-covers, the designs of which are ancient; and the painter merely reproduces the successful and popular work of some old and forgotten master.
But where the Persian artist shines is in his readiness to undertake any style or subject; geometrical patterns—and they are very clever in originating these; scroll-work scenes from the poets; likenesses, miniatures, paintings of flowers or birds; in any media, on any substance, oils, water, or enamel, and painting on porcelain; all are produced with rapidity, wonderful spirit, and striking originality. In landscape, the Persian is very weak; and his attempts at presenting the nude, of which he is particularly fond, are mostly beneath contempt. A street scene will be painted in oils and varnished to order ‘in a week’ on a canvas a yard square, the details of the painting desired being furnished in conversation. While the patron is speaking, the artist rapidly makes an outline sketch in white paint; and any suggested alterations are made in a few seconds by the facile hand of the ustad nakosh (master-painter), a term used to distinguish the artist from the mere portrait-painter or akkas, a branch of the profession much despised by the artists, a body of men who consider their art a mechanical one, and their guild no more distinguished than those of other handicraftsmen.
A Persian artist will always prefer to reproduce rather than originate, because, as a copy will sell for the same price as an original, by multiplication more money can be earned in a certain time, than by the exercise of originality. Rarely, among the better class of artists, is anything actually out of drawing; the perspective is of course faulty, and resembles that of early specimens of Byzantine art. Such monstrosities as the making the principal personages giants, and the subsidiaries dwarfs, are common; while the beauties are represented as much bejewelled; but this is done to please the buyer’s taste, and the artist knows its absurdity. There is often considerable weakness as to the rendering of the extremities; but as the Persian artist never draws, save in portraiture, from the life, this is not to be wondered at.