The hope of fame--what hours of speculation, what pulses of enthusiasm,
what fevers of effort, are based on that peculiarly subtle illusion! It
is yet the lure, the ignis fatuus of almost every breathing heart. In
the young particularly it burns with the sweetness and perfume of spring
fires. Then most of all does there seem substantial reality in the
shadow of fame--those deep, beautiful illusions which tremendous figures
throw over the world. Attainable, it seems, must be the peace and plenty
and sweet content of fame--that glamour of achievement that never was on
sea or land. Fame partakes of the beauty and freshness of the morning.
It has in it the odour of the rose, the feel of rich satin, the color of
the cheeks of youth. If we could but be famous when we dream of fame,
and not when locks are tinged with grey, faces seamed with the lines
that speak of past struggles, and eyes wearied with the tensity, the
longings and the despairs of years! To bestride the world in the morning
of life, to walk amid the plaudits and the huzzahs when love and faith
are young; to feel youth and the world's affection when youth and health
are sweet--what dream is that, of pure sunlight and moonlight
compounded. A sun-kissed breath of mist in the sky; the reflection of
moonlight upon water; the remembrance of dreams to the waking mind--of
such is fame in our youth, and never afterward.
By such an illusion was Eugene's mind possessed. He had no conception of
what life would bring him for his efforts. He thought if he could have
his pictures hung in a Fifth Avenue gallery much as he had seen
Bouguereau's "Venus" in Chicago, with people coming as he had come on
that occasion--it would be of great comfort and satisfaction to him. If
he could paint something which would be purchased by the Metropolitan
Museum in New York he would then be somewhat of a classic figure,
ranking with Corot and Daubigny and Rousseau of the French or with
Turner and Watts and Millais of the English, the leading artistic
figures of his pantheon. These men seemed to have something which he did
not have, he thought, a greater breadth of technique, a finer
comprehension of color and character, a feeling for the subtleties at
the back of life which somehow showed through what they did. Larger
experience, larger vision, larger feeling--these things seemed to be
imminent in the great pictures exhibited here, and it made him a little
uncertain of himself. Only the criticism in the _Evening Sun_ fortified
him against all thought of failure. _He was an artist._
He gathered up the various oils he had done--there were some twenty-six
all told now, scenes of the rivers, the streets, the night life, and so
forth--and went over them carefully, touching up details which in the
beginning he had merely sketched or indicated, adding to the force of a
spot of color here, modifying a tone or shade there, and finally, after
much brooding over the possible result, set forth to find a gallery
which would give them place and commercial approval.
Eugene's feeling was that they were a little raw and sketchy--that they
might not have sufficient human appeal, seeing that they dealt with
factory architecture at times, scows, tugs, engines, the elevated roads
in raw reds, yellows and blacks; but MacHugh, Dula, Smite, Miss Finch,
Christina, the _Evening Sun_, Norma Whitmore, all had praised them, or
some of them. Was not the world much more interested in the form and
spirit of classic beauty such as that represented by Sir John Millais?
Would it not prefer Rossetti's "Blessed Damozel" to any street scene
ever painted? He could never be sure. In the very hour of his triumph
when the _Sun_ had just praised his picture, there lurked the spectre of
possible intrinsic weakness. Did the world wish this sort of thing?
Would it ever buy of him? Was he of any real value?
"No, artist heart!" one might have answered, "of no more value than any
other worker of existence and no less. The sunlight on the corn, the
color of dawn in the maid's cheek, the moonlight on the water--these are
of value and of no value according to the soul to whom is the appeal.
Fear not. Of dreams and the beauty of dreams is the world compounded."
Kellner and Son, purveyors of artistic treasures by both past and
present masters, with offices in Fifth Avenue near Twenty-eighth Street,
was the one truly significant firm of art-dealers in the city. The
pictures in the windows of Kellner and Son, the exhibitions in their
very exclusive show rooms, the general approval which their
discriminating taste evoked, had attracted the attention of artists and
the lay public for fully thirty years. Eugene had followed their shows
with interest ever since he had been in New York. He had seen, every now
and then, a most astonishing picture of one school or another displayed
in their imposing shop window, and had heard artists comment from time
to time on other things there with considerable enthusiasm. The first
important picture of the impressionistic school--a heavy spring rain in
a grove of silver poplars by Winthrop--had been shown in the window of
this firm, fascinating Eugene with its technique. He had encountered
here collections of Aubrey Beardsley's decadent drawings, of Helleu's
silverpoints, of Rodin's astonishing sculptures and Thaulow's solid
Scandinavian eclecticism. This house appeared to have capable artistic
connections all over the world, for the latest art force in Italy,
Spain, Switzerland, or Sweden, was quite as likely to find its timely
expression here as the more accredited work of England, Germany or
France. Kellner and Son were art connoisseurs in the best sense of the
word, and although the German founder of the house had died many years
before, its management and taste had never deteriorated.
Eugene did not know at this time how very difficult it was to obtain an
exhibition under Kellner's auspices, they being over-crowded with offers
of art material and appeals for display from celebrated artists who were
quite willing and able to pay for the space and time they occupied. A
fixed charge was made, never deviated from except in rare instances
where the talent of the artist, his poverty, and the advisability of the
exhibition were extreme. Two hundred dollars was considered little
enough for the use of one of their show rooms for ten days.
Eugene had no such sum to spare, but one day in January, without any
real knowledge as to what the conditions were, he carried four of the
reproductions which had been made from time to time in _Truth_ to the
office of Mr. Kellner, certain that he had something to show. Miss
Whitmore had indicated to him that Eberhard Zang wanted him to come and
see him, but he thought if he was going anywhere he would prefer to go
to Kellner and Son. He wanted to explain to Mr. Kellner, if there were
such a person, that he had many more paintings which he considered even
better--more expressive of his growing understanding of American life
and of himself and his technique. He went in timidly, albeit with quite
an air, for this adventure disturbed him much.
The American manager of Kellner and Son, M. Anatole Charles, was a
Frenchman by birth and training, familiar with the spirit and history of
French art, and with the drift and tendency of art in various other
sections of the world. He had been sent here by the home office in
Berlin not only because of his very thorough training in English art
ways, and because of his ability to select that type of picture which
would attract attention and bring credit and prosperity to the house
here and abroad; but also because of his ability to make friends among
the rich and powerful wherever he was, and to sell one type of important
picture after another--having some knack or magnetic capacity for
attracting to him those who cared for good art and were willing to pay
for it. His specialties, of course, were the canvases of the eminently
successful artists in various parts of the world--the living successful.
He knew by experience what sold--here, in France, in England, in
Germany. He was convinced that there was practically nothing of value in
American art as yet--certainly not from the commercial point of view,
and very little from the artistic. Beyond a few canvases by Inness,
Homer, Sargent, Abbey, Whistler, men who were more foreign, or rather
universal, than American in their attitude, he considered that the
American art spirit was as yet young and raw and crude. "They do not
seem to be grown up as yet over here," he said to his intimate friends.
"They paint little things in a forceful way, but they do not seem as yet
to see things as a whole. I miss that sense of the universe in miniature
which we find in the canvases of so many of the great Europeans. They
are better illustrators than artists over here--why I don't know."
M. Anatole Charles spoke English almost more than perfectly. He was an
example of your true man of the world--polished, dignified, immaculately
dressed, conservative in thought and of few words in expression. Critics
and art enthusiasts were constantly running to him with this and that
suggestion in regard to this and that artist, but he only lifted his
sophisticated eyebrows, curled his superior mustachios, pulled at his
highly artistic goatee, and exclaimed: "Ah!" or "So?" He asserted always
that he was most anxious to find talent--profitable talent--though on
occasion (and he would demonstrate that by an outward wave of his hands
and a shrug of his shoulders), the house of Kellner and Son was not
averse to doing what it could for art--and that for art's sake without
any thought of profit whatsoever. "Where are your artists?" he would
ask. "I look and look. Whistler, Abbey, Inness, Sargent--ah--they are
old, where are the new ones?"
"Well, this one"--the critic would probably persist.
"Well, well, I go. I shall look. But I have little hope--very, very
little hope."
He was constantly appearing under such pressure, at this studio and
that--examining, criticising. Alas, he selected the work of but few
artists for purposes of public exhibition and usually charged them well
for it.
It was this man, polished, artistically superb in his way, whom Eugene
was destined to meet this morning. When he entered the sumptuously
furnished office of M. Charles the latter arose. He was seated at a
little rosewood desk lighted by a lamp with green silk shade. One glance
told him that Eugene was an artist--very likely of ability, more than
likely of a sensitive, high-strung nature. He had long since learned
that politeness and savoir faire cost nothing. It was the first
essential so far as the good will of an artist was concerned. Eugene's
card and message brought by a uniformed attendant had indicated the
nature of his business. As he approached, M. Charles' raised eyebrows
indicated that he would be very pleased to know what he could do for
Mr. Witla.
"I should like to show you several reproductions of pictures of mine,"
began Eugene in his most courageous manner. "I have been working on a
number with a view to making a show and I thought that possibly you
might be interested in looking at them with a view to displaying them
for me. I have twenty-six all told and--"
"Ah! that is a difficult thing to suggest," replied M. Charles
cautiously. "We have a great many exhibitions scheduled now--enough to
carry us through two years if we considered nothing more. Obligations to
artists with whom we have dealt in the past take up a great deal of our
time. Contracts, which our Berlin and Paris branches enter into,
sometimes crowd out our local shows entirely. Of course, we are always
anxious to make interesting exhibitions if opportunity should permit.
You know our charges?"
"No," said Eugene, surprised that there should be any.
"Two hundred dollars for two weeks. We do not take exhibitions for less
than that time."
Eugene's countenance fell. He had expected quite a different reception.
Nevertheless, since he had brought them, he untied the tape of the
portfolio in which the prints were laid.
M. Charles looked at them curiously. He was much impressed with the
picture of the East Side Crowd at first, but looking at one of Fifth
Avenue in a snow storm, the battered, shabby bus pulled by a team of
lean, unkempt, bony horses, he paused, struck by its force. He liked the
delineation of swirling, wind-driven snow. The emptiness of this
thoroughfare, usually so crowded, the buttoned, huddled, hunched,
withdrawn look of those who traveled it, the exceptional details of
piles of snow sifted on to window sills and ledges and into doorways and
on to the windows of the bus itself, attracted his attention.
"An effective detail," he said to Eugene, as one critic might say to
another, pointing to a line of white snow on the window of one side of
the bus. Another dash of snow on a man's hat rim took his eye also. "I
can feel the wind," he added.
Eugene smiled.
M. Charles passed on in silence to the steaming tug coming up the East
River in the dark hauling two great freight barges. He was saying to
himself that after all Eugene's art was that of merely seizing upon the
obviously dramatic. It wasn't so much the art of color composition and
life analysis as it was stage craft. The man before him had the ability
to see the dramatic side of life. Still--
He turned to the last reproduction which was that of Greeley Square in a
drizzling rain. Eugene by some mystery of his art had caught the exact
texture of seeping water on gray stones in the glare of various electric
lights. He had caught the values of various kinds of lights, those in
cabs, those in cable cars, those in shop windows, those in the street
lamp--relieving by them the black shadows of the crowds and of the sky.
The color work here was unmistakably good.
"How large are the originals of these?" he asked thoughtfully.
"Nearly all of them thirty by forty."
Eugene could not tell by his manner whether he were merely curious or
interested.
"All of them done in oil, I fancy."
"Yes, all."
"They are not bad, I must say," he observed cautiously. "A little
persistently dramatic but--"
"These reproductions--" began Eugene, hoping by criticising the press
work to interest him in the superior quality of the originals.
"Yes, I see," M. Charles interrupted, knowing full well what was coming.
"They are very bad. Still they show well enough what the originals are
like. Where is your studio?"
"61 Washington Square."
"As I say," went on M. Charles, noting the address on Eugene's card,
"the opportunity for exhibition purposes is very limited and our charge
is rather high. We have so many things we would like to exhibit--so many
things we must exhibit. It is hard to say when the situation would
permit--If you are interested I might come and see them sometime."
Eugene looked perturbed. Two hundred dollars! Two hundred dollars! Could
he afford it? It would mean so much to him. And yet the man was not at
all anxious to rent him the show room even at this price.
"I will come," said M. Charles, seeing his mood, "if you wish. That is
what you want me to do. We have to be careful of what we exhibit here.
It isn't as if it were an ordinary show room. I will drop you a card
some day when occasion offers, if you wish, and you can let me know
whether the time I suggest is all right. I am rather anxious to see
these scenes of yours. They are very good of their kind. It may be--one
never can tell--an opportunity might offer--a week or ten days,
somewhere in between other things."
Eugene sighed inwardly. So this was how these things were done. It
wasn't very flattering. Still, he must have an exhibition. He could
afford two hundred if he had to. An exhibition elsewhere would not be so
valuable. He had expected to make a better impression than this.
"I wish you would come," he said at last meditatively. "I think I should
like the space if I can get it. I would like to know what you think."
M. Charles raised his eyebrows.
"Very well," he said, "I will communicate with you."
Eugene went out.
What a poor thing this exhibiting business was, he thought. Here he had
been dreaming of an exhibition at Kellners which should be brought about
without charge to him because they were tremendously impressed with his
work. Now they did not even want his pictures--would charge him two
hundred dollars to show them. It was a great come down--very
discouraging.
Still he went home thinking it would do him some good. The critics would
discuss his work just as they did that of other artists. They would have
to see what he could do should it be that at last this thing which he
had dreamed of and so deliberately planned had come true. He had thought
of an exhibition at Kellner's as the last joyous thing to be attained in
the world of rising art and now it looked as though he was near it. It
might actually be coming to pass. This man wanted to see the rest of his
work. He was not opposed to looking at them. What a triumph even that
was!