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The Portrait
Iain Pears


A dark and disturbing novel of suspense, set at the turn of the 20th century, by the bestselling author of An Instance of the FingerpostThe windswept isle of Houat, off the coast of Brittany, is no picturesque artists' colony. At the turn of the twentieth century, life is harsh and rustic. So why did Henry MacAlpine forsake London – where he had been fêted by critics and gallery owners, his works exhibited alongside the likes of Cezanne and Van Gogh – to make his home in this remote outpost?The truth begins to emerge when, four years into his exile, MacAlpine receives his first visitor. Influential art critic William Nasmyth has come to the island to sit for a portrait. Over the course of the sitting, the power balance between the two men shifts dramatically as the critic whose pen could anoint or destroy careers becomes a passive subject. And as the painter struggles to capture Nasmyth's true character on canvas, a story unfolds – one of betrayal, hypocrisy, forbidden love, suicide and ultimately murder.















DEDICATION (#ulink_f3b16bde-964c-5ffd-92ff-9c540bdd8e67)


To Alex




CONTENTS


Cover (#u9484b9cd-680d-5eb9-9fd2-d583ad36a087)

Title Page (#u8ed9ab99-efa8-5def-aa70-14f7e96ef3d5)

Dedication (#ulink_bb1265e8-adb6-5d02-9dbb-27407ab18ad0)

Chapter 1 (#ulink_fa52a9cd-ace6-544a-8e7a-7b7d26b85ef1)

Keep Reading (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)

Also by the Author (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)




CHAPTER 1 (#ulink_452e24b1-c6f5-5597-8595-af5a95a2fb8a)


Well, well, well. Come in, my dear fellow. Let me look at you. But first, an embrace; it is not often you see an old friend for the first time in nearly four years. You’ve not changed a bit. Well, of course I’m lying. The eyes are that little bit more lined, the skin has lost some of its texture, the hair is a touch more grey. We are both past our best. But at least you’re still slim, to the point of emaciation. How you can eat so much to so little effect never ceases to astonish. The differences between us grow year by year, as you undoubtedly noticed the moment you saw me.

I must confess I was disturbed when I received your proposal last month. I thought, to begin with, that it was a bad idea. I could hardly believe you were prepared to travel all this way just to see me. Hence my cautious reply, in case you were making sly fun of me. My years of exile have made me sensitive, as you will no doubt discover. But here you are, a figure from history itself—my history, at least, as I suppose you are still very much in the centre of things back in London.

A glass of wine to toast your arrival. The pick of the Luberon. A particularly good year, 1912, as I am sure you will agree, especially when carefully aged for nearly nine months. I joke, of course. I like the stuff, but hardly expect your sophisticated palate to be equally enthusiastic. It is all sun and earth; no artifice in its production whatsoever. Dark, strong and somewhat violent—a little like the people who make it, in fact. I’ve grown used to the taste; it makes a change from the beer and cider that are the staples hereabouts, and fine vintages would be wasted on me, even if you could get them. I have a barrel brought over on the boat every month or so and drink it until it turns to vinegar. Already has, you think? No; it’s meant to be like that—or if it isn’t, few on this island know any better. This is the wine of the peasantry, the fuel of France. Drink it and you become like them. Don’t say you haven’t been warned.

Sit down, then. I know, not comfortable, but it is the cleanest and best chair I have. Besides, it will suit my purpose admirably, as you will see. I have been made nervous, even irritated, by your sudden arrival on my little island. Do you know how long it is since I’ve had a commission to paint a portrait? Extraordinary, considering my vogue, but I gave all that up when I gave up England. And now you want to take me into my past. So be it; you will have to endure the consequences of your own folly.

Your timing is as good as ever, though. A few months ago I would have rejected the idea out of hand, but now I found the invitation tickling. Why not, I thought? Let’s see what we can do here. It is time to discover whether I can ever go back to England by exploring why I left in the first place. And who better to help the enquiry than the man who is the foremost critic in the land, whose opinion has the weight of the divine behind it?

Another little joke. But it is an opportunity to renew the battle and fight it to a conclusion. Who will emerge triumphant from this encounter of ours, do you think? The painter or the sitter? Will it be “portrait of a gentleman by Henry Morris MacAlpine,” or “portrait of William Nasmyth, by anon.” The National Gallery, or the National Portrait Gallery? We shall see. It will be your fame against my abilities, and the result won’t be in until long after we’re both dead. I won’t trick you, I promise. I won’t sign the picture and forget to put your name on it. We will have an equal chance to see whom posterity decides to favour.

Do look around the room. I’ll be able to study your face in different lights. Not much to see, though; I’ve cast the material world aside and live as simply as the fishermen of this island. I have some books, some clothes, my paints and a few pots and pans. Not that I cook much; there is a perfectly good bar in the village, and the widow who keeps it will prepare a meal for me whenever I like, which is most of the time. Don’t look like that; she’s fat, old and has a fearsome temper. You will stay there, if you insist on going ahead with this project. As you see, I am hardly in a position to offer you hospitality and wouldn’t anyway. I have grown used to solitude, and now prefer it. I have only the one truckle bed, which you would find as uncomfortable as sleeping on the floor. Madame Le Gurun’s accommodation will not be much better, but you will get a true taste of deep France to shock your delicate sensibilities. This is not Paris, nor Deauville nor yet Pau, I warn you.

I can see on your face that you are surprised, even a little disoriented by all this. What did you have in your mind, as you travelled to see me? A lovely maison de maître, nestling in the hills, at least. Servants, certainly. People of some sort—a maire, an avocat, a doctor to invite me to dinner. Surely your old friend would insist on some sort of society in which to bathe his ego, however provincial it might be? Did you think this poor benighted island was like Belle-Ile over there, that poets and playwrights came in the summer to preen themselves on my terrace? Could the man you knew in London exist without being surrounded by company?

And what do you find? Nothing. A dingy, smoke-filled house with the roof coming off—perfectly serviceable, though, I assure you. Scarcely any furniture. A painter dressed in rags, looking hardly better than a tramp, living like some hermit on a windswept, bare island inhabited only by a few hundred Breton fishermen and their families. I mean, how extreme!

You’re right, of course, but what would be pretentious in Chelsea is perfectly acceptable here. What difference would it make how I dressed? No one ever sees me, except when I beg passage to go to Quiberon, and then I dress as fine as any country lawyer. I trim my beard—which you must admit is very fine and distracts attention from the ever-thinner hair on my head. And I struggle into my old suit with much wheezing; I have put on weight in the past few years as you see, and my clothes fit only with a protest. Still, I am elegant in comparison to most people in these parts, and with a straw hat on my head at its old jaunty angle, and with the walking stick that you gave me as a present, I believe I still cut a grand enough figure. I may be eccentric, but I do not want a reputation for such; it is the one way of attracting attention which I have always disdained. I need only one bed, one chair, one table, so that is all I have. The walls are bare; look out of the window and you have a finer sight than any painter has ever placed on a piece of canvas. And constantly changing, as well. The intensity and variety of the sea is extraordinary; there is no chance of ever getting bored with it, and I find even the greatest painting wearies me sooner or later. As for my own works, I know perfectly well what they look like, each and every one. I don’t need to hang them up and look at them, and don’t need anyone else to look, either.

Stop! Don’t move! That will do; I want you to be comfortable, as I intend to keep you here for some time. I am out of practise, remember, and creaking bones go slower than well-exercised ones. I have mainly spent my time painting landscapes, and hills neither move nor talk back to you. Nor do they try to sneak into an elegant posture, or have a supercilious look on their faces. Remove both, if you please. I intend to paint you with grandeur, not as some simpering aesthete. A smirk is of its time. Solemnity is for eternity.

Let me explain my thinking. What I have decided to do—and I am not interested in your opinion on the matter—is a portrait in which a variation in light will show up different aspects of your character. Think of Monet. No, I haven’t changed my mind; I still think he was not a good painter. But undoubtedly a great one, and as you know, I have never minded leaning on the great. So I’ll need you morning, afternoon and evening, depending on where I am in my work. For an ordinary portrait, one glance is enough; for most sitters it is more than enough. A man of complexity requires more, and a poor painter like me needs all the help he can get. Perhaps Titian could communicate all levels at once, but he was a genius and I—as you once pointed out—am not. A hurtful comment, you know, until I recognised its truth. I discovered early on that I could always forgive you anything, as long as you told the truth. Then I learnt how to use that knowledge, and bend my skills to my limitations, and exceed both. Intelligence and craft, sometimes, can be an effective substitute for native ability.

I intend to cheat, mind you; my account of you is partly finished already. You remember, no doubt? The portrait I began in Hampshire in 1906? I brought it with me; my departure was not as sudden as it seemed. I gave myself more than enough time to pack and take with me the things I considered important. For some reason, your face was amongst all the other debris I felt I could not do without, even though it had been lying in my studio unfinished for three years. Every now and then, I take it out and look at it. About a year ago I finally got around to completing it, the first panel: The Critic As He Was; now I will begin on The Critic As He Is. One day, perhaps, As He Will Be. Past, present and future, all in one gorgeous trilogy.

So we will revisit Van Dyck together, you and I. You know what I mean, of course; the triple portrait of Charles I. An allusion, if you like, to your renowned connoisseurship. But not a pastiche; those pictures have the two outer pictures looking inwards, the king regards nothing but himself. The middle portrait stares out, calm and arrogant, not caring what the world sees or thinks. That would never do for a man like yourself. The critic must look outwards, all the time. Over your shoulder even, lest you miss some new fashion sneaking up from behind.

Do you remember when we saw that picture together? You took me along as part of my London education. I was in awe of you, even though I was already in my fumbling way a better painter than you could ever dream of becoming. But you had vast knowledge and a boundless self-confidence, and I wanted that from you, wanted to see how you did it. So I watched; you taught, and my dependency grew still greater. I didn’t realise then that it was not something that could be mimicked. That assurance had deep roots that I could never grow for myself. That ability of yours never to doubt, never to hesitate about the correctness of your opinions, was part of your character, not mine.

Not mere arrogance, either. You had the right to your confidence, just as those colonial governors and members of Parliament have a right to their authority. You had spent years studying these pictures, while I merely had worked at painting some myself; immersed yourself in everything from Vasari to Morelli, while I was labouring away in a Glasgow drawing shop; travelled Europe from Hamburg to Naples before I had even left Scotland.

And I thought I could have all that merely by being around you for a few months. You never told me it was impossible. You never warned me and said, “I went to Winchester and Cambridge; I have known artists and writers, lords and ladies, all my life. I know Italy and France as well as I know my own country. You are a poor Scottish boy of no education and no connections, who has seen nothing but what I have shown you. We see and understand things differently, and always will. Find your own way, or you will only ever be ridiculous.” Had you said that, I would not have believed you—at least not then. But it would have been the truth; you would have done your duty.

What is that you have so furtively popped into your mouth? A pill? Medicine? Are you ill? Let me see what you have in that bag. Goodness, even your maladies are fashionable! A weakness in the heart, I suppose. Do you need to lie down occasionally, become soporific and frail without these things? Have the vapours on a settee? Strange how this age has turned weakness into something attractive and interesting, decided that frailty and artistic judgement are two sides of the same thing. Like Beardsley and his tuberculosis, spluttering his contamination all over people at the dinner table. Would he have been taken so seriously had he been in robust good health and gone swimming in the ocean in December? I think not, somehow. Anyway, let me know if you feel like slipping off your chair into a stupor. If you are going to spoil the pose I would like a little advance warning.

By all means, pour a glass of water and eat your little pills. It is the wrong time of day for serious work in any case. Had you arrived on time, then maybe something might have been done today. But when were you ever on time? Making others wait is part of your manner. I didn’t get out of bed until more than an hour after you were due. You weren’t going to have me hanging around, working myself up into a bad mood on our first day. And I shall give Madame Le Gurun strict instructions that you are to be woken up at daybreak, and pushed out the door by six. For her, as for most of the people hereabouts, that is a long and decadent lie-in. The morning light is what I want for you, to start with. Clear and shadowless, with the freshness of dawn. Nothing is hidden, and the slight chill you get at this time of year stimulates the senses wonderfully. You will have the delight of walking across the island every morning at dawn, seeing the sea in its infinite variety. Then, later on, I think the evening, with long shadows accentuating that long nose of yours, the watchful look of slight malevolence you have sometimes, when you are briefly unaware that anyone is looking at you.

I have seen it many times. I particularly remember the first occasion. Do you want to hear? Why not? You have nothing better to do, after all, and although I allow myself to talk as much as I like while I work, it is not something I encourage in my sitters. It is, after all, how I created my reputation. Ah! A smile, if only a slight one. Please don’t. Solemn, remember. What was the woman’s name? Not that it matters. She’d married way above herself and was headachingly nervous. She talked incessantly in a high, squeaky twitter, and eventually I had to finish quickly to avoid strangling her. I exhibited the portrait at the New English exhibition of 1903 with one of those silly academic titles. Lost for Words, I called it. My first success as a man of wit. It gained me some standing and reputation, and all for the small cost of humiliating a perfectly decent woman. I never apologised, not even when I came to regret it.

But that look of yours, the one I intend to go a-hunting for, that particular look I first noticed at Julien’s académie de peinture. Hateful place; I learned nothing there at all, but it was good for the reputation, and I was very mindful of that. What painter could be taken seriously in London without having studied in Paris? So off we all trooped, me and Rothenstein and McAvoy and Connard and all the other hopefuls, and sat around and drew and painted and argued and damned all others for their mediocrity. Well, it was fun to live in poverty and be perpetually borrowing money off each other, and to dream of conquering the world, of striding into the new century as conquerors claiming our birthright. We came back to London so full of ourselves, with such hopes! Maybe that was the point of it. But I certainly didn’t learn to paint there. Just to work quickly in a dark and smoky room with an incessant din all around me. I learned to live in a crowd and maintain my sense of self. I learned that I’d have to be detached if I was ever to achieve anything at all. And I learned how cruel is the world of art; how much like a jungle, where only the most powerful survive. A harsh and surprising lesson, as I had been used to the gentler atmosphere of drunken working men in Glasgow, whose only violence is to beat each other senseless on a Saturday night.

I remember when Evelyn first joined us in 1898, after I’d been there for two years and was already beginning to think of going to see whether I would survive in the great cauldron of the London painting world. She didn’t come for the life class, of course; women weren’t allowed into that. For one of the general lessons in perspective, an arrangement of dying flowers in a vase, an old jar, a hammer, all arranged quite indecorously. Curious spectacle, all those budding young revolutionaries, peering earnestly at that homely arrangement like a bunch of polite schoolboys. And then this girl comes in, and everyone sniggers. She was so young, so innocent-looking and so—prim. The sort who lives with her mother, drinks sherry once a month and is in bed by half past nine every night. Not the sort of woman you would want as a subject for a painting, unless you have a yen to depict the frail and delicate; although once I looked closer I thought maybe you could do something interesting with those pale cheeks, the thin hair pulled tightly into an unflattering bun at the nape of the neck, the slightly hunched pose, as if she were trying to hide her small breasts, pretend they were not there. She looks around, arranges herself, says good morning in a quiet, nervous voice, then begins. We all crowd round after a bit, to see the polite bit of feminine nonsense she had produced, and I saw that expression on your face.

You had come to take me to dinner, and were waiting with unaccustomed patience for me to clean myself up enough to look respectable. Normally it was the other way round, with me waiting like a young girl for her first beau. I’d only known you for a month or so then, and was already captivated. A chance, overheard remark in a museum, and you came up to me and invited me for a drink. The Café de l’Opéra! Champagne! Brilliant conversation, so worldly and knowing. You were already known, and had started writing reviews of Paris exhibitions for the newspapers in London. Were the editor of an advanced journal with no circulation, someone who turned up at parties and dinners. Had a reputation for—something, although no-one really knew what. Yet you pursued me, initiated the friendship and cultivated it. You chose me to be your friend! You singled me out, paid attention to me, began my education. I was twenty-seven, but so inexperienced of this new world I wished to enter I’m sure I seemed much younger. You were near thirty already, but almost jaded from having seen so much.

I think the others laughed at me behind my back, but I didn’t care. I wore my adoration, my reverence, like a badge of pride. “William says …” “William thinks …” “William and I …” Heavens, but I must have been ridiculous. You encouraged it, flattered and cajoled. “Don’t worry about the others. An artist like yourself …” “You have something special; real ability …” All those phrases; I lapped them up, wanted more, wanted you to say them again and again. It was like bathing in milk. And I didn’t realise how much I filled a need in you: everything was fresh for me; you had seen everything before, many times over. With me in tow you could catch some of the excitement of discovery and feel the joy of novelty once more. I think it is why you so earnestly advocate the new in art. You are constantly in search of something to excite you and stir an enthusiasm that a too-fortunate education has snatched from your grasp.

No-one had ever taken me seriously before. You were the first not to regard me as skilled only in self-deception. You patronised me, of course, but then you patronised everyone. But even I realised that you liked to be around when I saw something for the first time, discovered a painter I had never heard of, gazed with wonder on a masterpiece you had known all your life. You could tell me everything about the artist, dissect his skill and turn his genius into words. But you couldn’t be frozen in amazement, couldn’t tremble with emotion. I provided that for you, and in return you gave me an education. Until you came along, I was sustained only by a deep-seated Scottish doggedness, but I knew already it wasn’t going to be enough. I loved you for that, always will. Because you were right, after all: I am a good artist.

I threw myself into my work under your tutelage, labouring all hours of the day and night to make myself better, laying my improvements before you like a faithful dog coming back to his master with a stick. And I did get better, improved in ways I scarcely thought possible; I learned to take risks, not to be safe and hide behind my skill. Oh, bliss it was! I still look back on those evenings we spent together as the happiest part of my life, and I wanted it to go on forever. I didn’t want to get to know you any better; didn’t want to think about the shadows and the subtleties. But innocence is only pleasurable because it is transient.

How is it that expressions change? I have spent years looking at people’s faces, and it is still a mystery to me. A minuscule, immeasurable movement of an eyebrow in relation to the eye and nose; a scarcely discernible tightening or loosening of the muscles in cheek and neck; the barest tremor on the lips; a shine in the eyes. But we know the eyes do not change; the most significant manifestation of emotion is pure illusion. And this fractional shifting is all that distinguishes contempt from respect, love from anger. Some people are crude; their faces can be read by anyone. Some are more subtle, and only those close to them can read the face correctly. Some are incomprehensible even to themselves.

It has taken me years to unpick the expression on your face when you looked at Evelyn’s work that day in the atelier. I sometimes think my entire career, my life, even, could be cast as the quest to decipher that look, to peel away layer after layer, to plunge down into your mind and piece together the fragmentary emotions and responses that I saw but could not understand. I managed it eventually; I will tell you how soon enough.

So the expression was obscure, but the response was not. That was as clear as a bell. A polite dismissal. Not even contempt. It carried weight, I followed you, but not so far as to make some comment; even then I could see something of myself in her. And I was not comfortable. Because my own immediate reaction had been different—the brief start that comes into the mind when faced with something unexpected and surprising. I could have dismissed that easily, of course; but it was echoed by the momentary hesitation I noticed in you; a sliver of time between your looking and your response.

That’s what I want in this picture, the one I have been carefully sketching out all this while. I want that look, that penetration. I want that ability to see reflected back on the viewer, want the person looking at this portrait to think that it is he who is being assessed, not the other way round. And unless you manage to give it to me, old friend, I’ll have to try and conjure it up from my memory. No-one will understand but me, of course; it may be that it will all go down as merely a piece of bad painting, or be overlooked entirely. It doesn’t matter; this is not just a public portrait. It is also a private matter, between you and me. So that you understand my understanding, if you follow me.

You see, the problem I have at the moment is that you have grown just a touch sleek in the last few years. I hadn’t expected that before you arrived, so I am having to rethink my approach. You’ve become a bit too self-confident, somewhat priggish. All those years back, there was a faint anxiety to your features. It made you more human, more complex at the same time that it made you more difficult and—let us not beat about the bush—more prickly. Your snobbishness, your arrogance, your ambition were all nearer the surface then, and even though they are not normally appealing qualities, they made you a more attractive person, and certainly an easier one to paint. Now years of success have worn all that away; I see none of it any more. But it is still there, somewhere, and I intend to bring it out. I know you haven’t really changed.

At the moment you look merely sardonic, detached. No good at all. You’ve ruined my morning. We will stop here. No, I’ve no idea what you should do for the rest of the day; that’s your problem. I suggest a walk. You have too much of the urban about you; it makes you pale and rather lifeless—desiccated, even. Fresh air and exercise would be very much better for you than those nasty little pills. Besides, there are some things to see around here if you look; they are careless of their history in these parts and leave it lying around in the most surprising places. I like that tendency in them; they are concerned with the present, and feel no need to preserve and catalogue every last stone of their past. They have been futurists for generations. The avant-garde can tell them nothing they do not already know.

I admit Houat is not much to look at, at first sight; it doesn’t yield up its charms easily. There’s nothing for a man schooled in Gainsborough, who knows of the sublime beauty of the Alpine landscape, the wooded gentleness of Suffolk, or expects his Campagna to be peopled with besporting nymphs and shepherds. There are no mountains, no woods. Scarcely even any trees. You have to look to see the clumps of wild carnations, the yellow of the broom, or the jasmine. The variety of grasses, each with a subtly different colour. All these things need to be studied, but above all you have to study the sea, which is the alpha and omega of this place, its definition and cause. The colours, the tones, the shapes of the sea in its different guises are all the scenery you need; it is an endless show, and can conjure up every emotion and mood. I recommend a closer look; walk along Treac’h er Goured—the whole island, after all, is only a couple of miles long; even you could manage it—and find the holy fountain. Sit by it while you smell the wind and feel the sun. Stay long enough and you will begin to see what I mean, perhaps. Go to the church in the village, take a walk along the beach, the cliffs, and look out over the sea. Consider the fort overlooking the island, the stonework of the quay. There are menhirs and dolmens here, although such echoes of a pagan past are supposed to have been destroyed. What more could any reasonable man want? There is enough for a lifetime of contemplation. Tell me what you think tomorrow.

And while you are at it, I will cast an eye over my morning’s labour and, no doubt, find it wanting. At the moment, though, I’m not displeased with my efforts. I’ve caught that way your chin rises above the horizontal and gives you the air of aloofness and superiority you use so well. But not too much; don’t worry. I haven’t yet descended into caricature. And no, you can’t see it. This isn’t a collaboration. I paint; you sit. When you are in that chair, you are stripped of your expertise, of your taste and discernment. Your opinion is of no more value to me than that of the old peasant I sketched last month. You are defenceless until I am finished.

Don’t look petulant; it is only a passing torment you have to endure. Painters have to live with the opinions of others forever, and so we try to ignore them as much as possible, like these islanders who do not notice the stone memorials to the hardships they have witnessed. Think of the cruelties you have inflicted on others with your pen—for the most part justified I am sure, but no less hurtful for that—and consider how petty my revenge will be. Besides, I have to be true to what I see; I cannot be too harsh on you when I trace the line of that chin. I remember too well how it made me laugh, how I flung myself into agreement with its disdainful movements.

Shut the door when you go out. The wind is getting up and I don’t want my papers blowing about.

DO YOU KNOW, after you left yesterday I spent the next hour walking about this little room—which I grandly call my studio—cursing you? And myself, for not throwing you out the moment you set foot over the threshold. Why did you suggest I paint your portrait? I know the reasons you insinuated in your letter, of course—expressed delicately and gravely, you felt I needed help. Needed to feel you still loved me. That you didn’t resent the way I abandoned you and went off without a word. A portrait would perhaps restore my self-confidence, and give me some much-needed income. A picture of you at some exhibition would be a fine way of advertising my continued existence, maybe even ease my return to London. Is that it? I am grateful; touched. It has always been your worst characteristic, to bestow generous aid and ask nothing obvious in return. No wonder so many people distrust you. I can see you talking it over with your wife, as she sits on the sofa and reads, you at your desk by the big window. Proof-reading a review? Working up a lecture? Are you still working on that book you started in Paris? You look up. “I’ve been thinking about Henry quite a lot recently. I really think I should see if I can help him a little. …”

And she smiles. She had a lovely smile. “Such an awkward man! You know I never really took to him. But I know he is an old friend of yours, my dear. …”

You go on: “What about writing to him and seeing if he’ll have another go at a portrait? I hear he is not at all well. His last few letters have been rambling, almost incoherent, so I’m told. That way I’ll be able to find out how he is. …”

So your excellent wife—a fine woman, who has never directly denied you anything—gives her assent, and you write to me. Maybe I am inventing; but I’m sure I am close.

But that is not it, is it? I have been here near four years now, with not a peep from you before. If you wanted to send me money, there are easy enough ways of doing it. And no amount of friendship would make you spend more than ten minutes on this island unless there was some compelling reason. People can change, but not that much. You get faint crossing Hyde Park. Nature has never been one of your loves. So what is it that makes you need to sit in my presence for days on end? What is it that you are after, that you evidently cannot ask me directly? That is the way you draw people in, is it not? Sit silently, until they speak to fill up the silence; give little away yourself while the other person reveals their soul?

You see, your very presence takes me back into the past and wakes up all sorts of memories I had forgotten about for years, which have not troubled me for a long time. I got no work done whatsoever after you left, and had recourse in the early evening to that wine which you find so revolting. I drank far too much of it, had only an omelette for dinner; I didn’t want to go to Mère Le Gurun for fear you would be there. The prospect of an evening’s conversation with you made me feel perfectly sick, so I stayed put and made myself feel ill all on my own. I slept badly. I haven’t really slept well for years now. Not since I left England. Some nights are better than others, but last night I scarcely slept at all, despite the pharmacopoeia of potions I have in my little cupboard. I am in a bad mood, mainly because of my ageing stomach, which I find can take less and less of any sort of ill treatment. The man who once used to go for days without sleep in a frenzy of work is no more. Dead, my friend, and buried; only a shade remains, which needs an early night and cannot take too much wine.

I grant that there are some questions to be answered. How is it that an artist in his prime, nearing the peak of his career, should act in such a foolish way? He has income, some small renown and (even better) reputation. He has just taken part in one of the most important exhibitions ever to be seen in the country, is at the vanguard of the artistic revolution sweeping the world. He has achieved, nearly, what he has aimed at all his life. From near poverty in Scotland, then time as a jobbing illustrator for scruffy magazines and penny dreadfuls in London, scrimping and saving to go to Paris, and finally the goal is at hand. Then suddenly—pop!—off he goes. Packs his bags and says farewell to more than twenty years of struggle and hard work. Tells no-one where he is for some time, refuses to answer letters. Why? There is no insanity in the family, is there? Both his parents were well-nigh teetotal, were they not? If he has some horrible disease, better, surely, that he stay in London and get proper medical treatment? What is the cause of this behaviour? What did he do that makes him flee the country like some murderer on the run?

There are limits to eccentricity, after all. Behaving outrageously is conventional, necessary for any painter wishing to be taken seriously these days. But this is beyond outrageous. It is offensive. The whole point of running off to the continent in a fit of aesthetic pique is to come back again, so others may revel in the deed, glory in the flouting of convention, draw strength from the shock and disapproval of others. To disappear completely, send back no pictures to advertise your continued existence, is different; it implies a disdain for all those artists in Chelsea and beyond, and few people can forgive being disdained. Makes them look at their metropolitan lives and wonder. What’s wrong with being here? Should we be doing that too? Or it makes people suspicious, makes them gossip.

You want an explanation. You have a right to know. Well, we shall see; I think you may know the reasons as well as I do. As my painting progresses, perhaps mutual understanding will emerge as well as a portrait. I have been waiting nearly four years for you to ask; you can wait a few days for my answer.

Sit, then; the light is good and I’m often at my best when in an ill-humour. No, no, no. You know better than that. Both arms on the chair, head against the rest; you are meant to look senatorial, the Roman of old, an imposing figure of authority. Don’t you remember? Or did your dinner have a similar effect on you as on me that you slump there like an empty paper bag? That’s better. Now keep still, for pity’s sake.

Memories? Oh yes. Both good and bad, I assure you. Worst of all, you brought out feelings of regret, for the first time since I came here. But then, you always had that effect on me, so why should it be any different now? I started thinking about what might have been, had I stayed in London, had I cultivated people properly, had I stayed in the fight, had I got married. I saw the career ahead of me, culminating in a large house in Holland Park or Kensington, revered by my many pupils, rather than forgotten and living in total isolation. Too late now. Now I would have the reputation of being unreliable, an unsafe pair of hands. How many commissions do you think I abandoned when I left? At least a dozen, most of them paid for. And I doubt that what I paint these days would find much favour. Too eccentric, too strange.

It could have been different, as you know. It was within my grasp; all I had to do was keep in favour with people like you, produce works that were suitably advanced but not too daring that no-one would buy them. That is why I can indulge in regret. You can’t regret a fantasy; only a real opportunity lost can produce that sort of wistfulness. Would success have been so delicious as it seemed when I thought about it late last night in my bed? Probably not; I tasted enough of it to get the bitterness on my tongue, the dry feeling in my mouth when I complimented ugly old women for the sake of their husbands’ wallets, or made polite conversation to dealers interested only in the difference between buying and selling prices. I knew the vulnerability of the successful with those beneath, eager to tear them down and feast on their entrails.

Did we not do that, you and I? Would I have been spared in my turn? I think not. It is the cycle of the generations, played out in every species that walks the face of the earth. The rise of the young, the tearing down of the old. Again and again. Was I supposed to sleepwalk meekly through a play where the script was already written, on which I could have no influence? We sat long hours in Paris bars and London pubs, sneering at the likes of Bouguereau and Herkomer and Hunt, deriding their pomposity, the prostitution of their skills into sterile emblems for the bourgeoisie—those were the glorious, rolling phrases, were they not? How good they made us feel. But what would those below say about me now? What are they called again? Vorticists, Cubists, Futurists or some such? Too weird even for you, I imagine. Sentimental, I think, might be one word for the sort of stuff I was producing in London. Prettified, perhaps; insincere would wound because it would be true. And no doubt a whole raft of other insults I cannot even imagine. Who knows what sins we committed in our turn when we cast our elders into the darkness and trampled so gleefully on their reputations?

We weren’t really very good, you know. Think of all those acres of canvas we churned out when we came back from Paris, all that semi-digested Impressionism. We got rid of the wistful peasants and the studies of girls knitting, true enough; but we replaced them with unending landscapes painted in muted greens and browns. Thousands of them. Didn’t really matter if it was Cumbria or Gloucestershire or Brittany, they all looked pretty much the same. I don’t know why English painters love brown so much. It’s not as if it is so much cheaper than any other colour. We learned from the Impressionists only how to produce pictures safe enough to hang on the parlour wall, next to the engraving of the Queen and the needlepoint made by Granny when she was young.

It is the violence these new people bring to their work which interests me; what they produce may be revolting, incompetent, the antithesis of real art; they may be frauds and fools. Who knows? But they tap into the violence of men’s souls like the first roll of thunder on a summer’s day. They have extended their emotional range into areas we never thought of. There was nothing of that in our work. We challenged those old men in so many ways, but our notion of violence was still heroic. General Wolfe capturing Quebec, Napoleon crossing the Alps. No blood, no death and no cruelty. We produced studies of sunlight on cathedral walls and thought that was revolutionary enough. I could have led the way, you know.

Anyway, I decided not to wait for my inevitable eclipse. I would not be a sitting target. I retreated, packed up, came here; foreswore the knighthood, the obituary in The Times, the commemorative retrospective at the Royal Academy. I did not wish others to destroy my reputation, so I did it myself, before they could strike me down. At least I would deprive them of the pleasure. Cowardice, you may have thought at the time. I prefer to think of it as being acute. What soldier stands and waits to be overcome by a superior force? Better to get out of the way.

And bide my time. My renunciation was tactical, not mystical. I do not yearn for obliteration; my opinion of my work is too high for that. True, the wait will be long, but I am not concerned with my reputation during my life. Even had I achieved immense fame, I knew it would evaporate soon enough. I am after a bigger prize than that. Far bigger.

You think I am deranged, that the years of loneliness and isolation have finally tipped me over into an insane self-importance. Ah, but you will see, when I have finished this painting. You will see.

I suppose I’d better tell you my secret; you’ll find it out on your own, and I don’t want that smirk of yours to appear without being summoned by me. I have taken to going to church. Not just for the aesthetics of it all, either. I do the whole thing. Communion, confession, everything. A good Catholic I have become—me, brought up in the Church of Scotland, which abominates all things papist. If you want to break with your past, exterminate history beyond all hope of recovery, there is no better way of accomplishing it than a good conversion, I find. I think it was the discipline of it which attracted me. I was, after all, living in this house on my own, without any attachments, and I needed to give some form to the week. You’ll see that it has influenced my painting considerably. I’m now more than conversant with the sufferings of the martyrs, for the local priest is very keen on such things, and likes to go on about it in his sermons. A man for miracles as well, which I find refreshing these days, when everyone seeks an explanation and refuses to believe anything which cannot be made rational.

He has undertaken my education in matters religious, and gives me readings to ponder after my confessions. He has a predilection for the old Celtic saints, coming as he does from sturdy Breton stock, and I find that they appeal to me greatly as well. A few months ago I read about Saint Coloman, who was accused of being a traitor for some reason and killed. He was hanged, and his body was left on the gibbet, uncorrupted, for eighteen months. I think the point of the story is that it was only his death which sanctified him; before that he had been nothing extraordinary, yet the hate of others turned him into something not even crows dared defile. We are a long way from Good Works and the teaching of the kirk here. Do you think that was why the good father chose that for my bedside reading? Or perhaps there was something else in his mind. Perhaps I was meant to think about those who killed him; they were all drowned.

If I let you see what I am doing here, you would see instantly how Catholic my eyes have become under the influence of such teaching. There you sit on your chair, which I am subtly transforming into a throne. Your pose is imperious, you are more than a mere critic writing for newspapers and fashionable magazines. I seek to approach truth through subtle flattery, you see. I will not short-change you; I have given my word on that. No mere journalist, then, but something more. You will have the pose of a pope, as painted by Velázquez, to remind everyone of the power that people like yourself wield in our modern world. You command, and it comes to pass. You lift your finger and a reputation is made, shake your head and the hopes nurtured for years in the ateliers, worked for and so desperately desired, are dashed forever. So, you do not move armies, do not wreak destruction on faraway lands like our politicians and generals. You are far more powerful than that, are you not? You change the way people think, shape the way they see the world. A great power, wielded without check or hindrance. A despotism of the arts, in which you are high priest of the true and the beautiful. Very much like the Pope in your own way, and in my fashion so will I honour you.

But the church and myself? Yes; I am serious. I have always believed in sin, you know, my Scottish forebears gave me that if nothing else. But I always found Scottish sin so unsatisfying. There is so much of it you can’t really distinguish between any of its wonderful varieties. Playing cards on a Sunday, drinking alcohol for more than medical necessity, seducing your neighbour’s wife, murder—it is all one and the same, sin which condemns you to eternal torment. Wake up, get out of bed, go downstairs and have breakfast, and already your soul is lost. So why not murder someone as well? You’re doomed before you’re even out of the cradle anyway. Down here they are more subtle in the matter. They have big sins and little sins, sins mortal and sins minor; you are not thrust into hellfire without any say in the matter. You have to earn damnation.

A God like that I have time for. We get along, and as He has made my life so much more interesting, I find I can believe in Him a little. So I go to Mass, and sit in rapture with the fishermen and their wives, bathe in the odour of haddock and sanctity, and confess four times a year. I find I have little to own up to these days, so I have to go back over the years, clearing away the backlog. I fear the priest groans when he sees me coming, as he knows he’s going to get another chapter of autobiography which will have him crouched in his little confessional for hours. He suspects me of enthusiasm, which is itself a sin.

On the other hand, he cannot say that I do not have a wondrous variety of faults to own up to. I keep him entertained; occasionally I hear an intake of breath, and I feel him half-smiling in shock, and, I suspect, with more than a little envy. You must meet him, by the way. I don’t mean that because you will enjoy the experience, although he is pleasant enough. Or because he is the high point of social life on the island, even though that is true as well. You must meet him: it is an absolute obligation. His power in his domain is greater than that of the Pope in what is left of his. This island of Houat is a theocracy. I do not joke. The priest is deputy mayor, but ensures a nonentity has the official role so that everything is done his way. He is head of the fishing syndicate. The magistrate. The headmaster of the school. His nuns control the electric telegraph, and he has only recently given up control of the alcohol supply. You do not annoy Father Charles. Not if you want to stay on this island. He is monarch, head of the judiciary and God’s representative on earth, all incarnate in the same small man. And he has the only good cook on the island. Benevolent, but in his sphere as autocratic as you are in yours. You must go and see him; if you do not, he will come and see you, and that would be impolite. Do please try to make yourself agreeable, for my sake. None of your witty cosmopolitan repartee, if you don’t mind. He is a proud man, very protective of his subjects who, you should know, do not object to their subjection. Were it not Father Charles, it would be someone else, who might not be so enthusiastic at keeping the French at bay.

This is the man who has taken your place as my guide and confessor. I did my best to enjoy my sins, but I find atoning for them is more pleasurable. Do you know, he once called me a libertine? A marvellously ancien régime term, which I was quite taken by. I came back home and immediately sketched myself as Hogarth’s rake, soaked in debauchery in my studio, with my two favourite models draped all over me. I burnt it, though, as I didn’t manage to put in any severity, only nostalgia, which wasn’t proper. You can’t be forgiven unless you truly regret—that’s one of the rules, apparently—and it was clear evidence that my regret was far from total.

Besides, it was a lie; my sins were never so elaborate. Even when my very soul is at stake I can’t resist the tendency to overpaint the subject. It is a weakness you pointed out to me years ago, and the Lord knows how hard I have tried to rein myself in, to stick to facts, to obey the law as laid down both by God and William Nasmyth. But I never succeed for long. Sooner or later, I heighten the colour, clutter the image or add an extra model to my memories.

JACKY WAS ONE of the figures in my sketch, of course, always my real favourite as a subject. She was so disgusting, so common, so vulgar, you couldn’t help admiring her. And a brilliant model, as well. A body like Aphrodite, a face like the Virgin and an ability to stand still for hours in any pose you cared to ask for. I’ve always preferred women on the Rubens scale, myself. None of these skinny Botticelli types for me, all points and angles. With Jacky you got the opulence of form, rounded and full, set off by a flawless skin that was almost like marble. She was the personification of fecundity itself; everything about her was sensual, fleshy. What else could anyone want?

I imagined initially she was thinking when she sat for me, but eventually I concluded there was nothing inside at all. A complete blank. Time had no meaning. A minute, an hour, a day, it was all the same to her. She had nothing better to do, and so she simply sat still. I think that was what she did when she was on her own; having me pay her to do what came naturally was an extra bonus. But when she did talk, my goodness! The contrast between that angelic expression and dull mouth was remarkable. “So I said to her, I said, if you think I’m going to give you tuppence-ha’penny for that, you got another think coming. I told her straight and do you know what she said to me. …” On and on she would drone, giving details about the price of tomatoes or cloth or how she burned some cake, or couldn’t find a stocking, until your head was spinning and you wanted to jump out of the window just to get away from her. I always thought it most perplexing, because I still, somewhere, held on to the old notion that character is reflected in the face. Not in the case of our Jacky, and the discovery fast killed off any desire. You could ask her to do anything, and she would meekly obey, but it was like making love to a cardboard box; movement but no passion, not even the pretence of any engagement. Just the same vacant stare. I knew, of course, that she had alternative sources of income, that she “entertained a gentleman,” as she put it in a show of primness—I always suspected that somewhere in there was a lower-middle-class housewife, who dreamed, perhaps, of her parlour and of washing day. I do not think the gentleman in question could have been greatly entertained. Nor did I wonder who the poor soul might be; just felt sorry for him.

A pity she went and killed herself, though; she deprived the world of many a fine picture by her selfishness. I never would have thought it possible, until I read about it in the paper. Part-time prosititute dragged from river, the papers said. She deserved a better memorial than that, despite her many failings. The best model in London, in my opinion, but stupid. Very stupid. Imagine killing herself just because she got herself pregnant! Who would have thought she was even capable of feeling shame? Let alone acting on it in such an extreme way. Very perplexing. She was silly when alive, and died as she had lived, it seems.

Ah! Such an impenetrable face you have, my friend! Such control. You are a painter’s nightmare, you know. It was something I once admired greatly. The stoicism of the English gentleman is a wonderful thing, unless you are trying to capture it on canvas, because emotions bounce off it and never reveal themselves. Tell you something shocking or wondrous, insult you or compliment you, and that same inscrutable expression comes back. It is like trying to peer through a dirty window: you do not see true, and end up seeing only your own faint reflection instead. That will not do. You must show some strong emotion for me before you leave or I will throw down my brushes and stamp out in a painterly rage. Haven’t had one of those for years.

Curiously, Evelyn took to Jacky. I passed her on when she came back to London in 1902. She needed a model, and eventually Jacky became her one and only sitter. It was a strange conjunction. Each supplied a lack in the other, I suppose; Evelyn must have liked Jacky’s simplicity, the domesticity of her mind, the vacuity of her tastes. Perhaps she wanted a refuge from all that aestheticism, needed an occasional antidote to the high seriousness of creation. Can you understand such a thing, William? Might it ever appeal to you? And Jacky responded to something in Evelyn; her independence and her silence, perhaps. The inner strength that belied the feeble frame. Or perhaps she saw more than I did, and realised how very fragile she truly was, and responded to her courage. She was laughed at, I know, when people like myself—who thought the low made suitable subjects for art but not for conversation—saw them together in the street. Arm in arm, sometimes. Friends. Not artist and model, or mistress and servant. There was a certain lack of decorum in being so familiar; a bit like taking the parlourmaid out to a restaurant.

And how they could spend so much time together was a mystery, especially as Jacky would scold her on occasion like some old shrew. I wouldn’t have put up with being talked to in such a way by a mere model, but Evelyn didn’t seem to mind, even showed signs of being properly apologetic. She found friendship in all sorts of odd places, and never really enjoyed the company of other artists. She was one of those people who could winkle out something interesting in almost anyone, if she chose. I thought that with Jacky the effort must have been almost superhuman, but it never looked that way when I saw them together. She seemed far more relaxed than ever she was with me. Not that I thought about it then.

I need no models now; I haven’t painted any woman under forty for some time. They guard their womenfolk carefully here, and it is a small island. Besides, I don’t find all these lacy coifs particularly appealing, and they don’t go about with their heads uncovered. Nor, for the most part, are they particularly appealing subjects, unless you like to paint weather-beaten faces and the effects of back-breaking work or scant food. Not the sort of subject matter that usually appeals, and they are not open-faced; you would have to know them much better to penetrate their minds and turn them into something worth looking at. Still, beauty can flourish in even the most inhospitable terrain. There is one girl I would love to paint; she has the eyes of the devil. But we have done no more than exchange glances over an expanse of church. I fascinate her, I know. I am to her what you were for me: a new world, full of opportunities, offering everything she wants and cannot win by herself unaided. She wants to leave this island, to see and be different things. She dreams at night of what it must be like, to be something other than she is. She longs for freedom, and is hated for it by many on this island. Her desires have made her difficult and unsympathetic. It will eat away at that beauty soon enough.

If I intervened, her fate would change: whatever happened, she would go, would not marry the honest fisherman who is her destiny, would not be aged before her time by hardship and pregnancy. Lord only knows how she would end up. But high or low, part of her wants to take the chance, to roll the dice. Anything but what is mapped out for her here. If only I would force her hand. Goodness, I see the temptation! But I won’t; it is not for me to change her future. All she has to do is get on the boat and not come back. It’s simple. If you change someone’s life you have a responsibility to them forever; it is a heavy burden which you must not shirk. Do you not agree, William?

I have painted one portrait, though. Still life might be a better term. It’s unfinished, like most of my work these days. But not through laziness; it cannot be completed. About a year ago, a boy was washed up at the place called Treac’h Salus, a fine sandy beach, about twenty minutes’ walk from here. No-one knew who he was; not from this island certainly. Perhaps he’d been swept off a fishing boat in a storm the week before, but no-one had heard of such a thing. Perhaps he was a cabin boy on one of the passing steam ships, a stowaway, even. Enquiries were made, but he came from the sea—that was all anyone ever discovered. Those who know such things thought he’d been in the water a week or so, not much longer. I was having a morning walk when I saw the small group of islanders gathered around him in the distance; there was something calm, reverential, about their pose; they were praying. You remember Millet’s Angelus? The way the woman’s head inclines to the ground, the way the man fiddles nervously with his hat, both lost in thought? The intensity of prayer depicted so simply and effectively?

My curiosity disturbed them as I approached over the sand, but I could not keep away; I needed to see what was producing that perfect pose. My reaction was quite different to theirs. They were reflective; I was fascinated. They were resigned; I was excited, stimulated. The brilliant colours of decay, the complex bundle of angles and curves on the twisted body, half-eaten and swollen. The green tint, reflecting purple and red in the sun that crept over an exposed leg, so recently young and strong. The way the majesty of the human form, God’s image, could be reduced so easily by the sea to the obscene and grotesque. And the eye—one only, for the other had been eaten out of its socket. One eye was preserved, a pale sky blue shining like hope in that jumble of mouldy, stinking carcass. It still had personality and life, something which seemed almost amused by its predicament. And not fearful or distressed; perfectly calm, almost serene. An echo of the soul which survived despite everything that had happened. I could see it watching me, seeing how I would react.

Haunting. Literally so, because I could think of nothing else for days; I felt I knew it, had seen it looking at me before. I came back in the afternoon with a sketchbook, but the disapproval would have been so intense it wasn’t worth trying to settle down. And for some reason I could not draw it properly without actually being there. All I could get down was that eye, which drowned out the rest of the scene like a brilliant light in darkness. Even though the image was fixed in my mind, the composition just so, the rest of the boy kept slipping away from me.

They buried him next day in the grim little graveyard, with a full funeral as if he had been one of their own. No small thing, that; funerals are expensive and these people have little enough to spare. But he could so easily have been one of their own children. A touching ceremony, really. Stark and austere like their own lives. The congregation gathered in the churchyard overlooking the sea, a genuine, heartfelt grief for someone they had never known, and never even suspected existed. They are good people, truly they are, though your expression as you listen to my tale shows how worthless they are to you.

One curious thing did happen a few days later, which even you might find intriguing. Maybe not. But the police heard about it and came over from Quiberon to find out what they could, and were properly cross that the boy had been buried already. Even threatened to dig him up again, although the priest soon put paid to that idea. The curiosity was that, to a man and a woman, they refused to say anything—not where the boy was found, nor what they did with him, nor any suspicions they might have had about who he was. They closed ranks completely, and responded to all questions with a sullen, stubborn silence. The boy was theirs, now. This was their business. Their obstinacy when confronted with anything to do with the outside world is extraordinary.

It brought back an old fascination of mine that had been lingering in the back of my mind for years. Do you remember those Sunday morning expeditions we used to do together in Paris? I found them so wonderful, getting up early, meeting in a café for some bread and coffee, then off for a day of talk and art. A close friendship, as close as it can be. My education, of more use to me in many ways than any time I spent in school or atelier. We saw Puvis de Chavannes in the Pantheon, and argued long whether his vast canvasses of saints were genius or mediocrity, triumph or disaster. I still haven’t made up my mind, but I have a love for them because they are forever associated with the bliss of friendship and the joy of experience. We had the whole of the Louvre at our disposal, medieval wall paintings, Renaissance architecture, the sculptures of Houdon and Rodin; we saw churches and monuments, art modern and ancient. Studied Italian paintings and German prints together, ate and drank and walked. We sat in parks and dusty squares, walked by rivers and canals until the light faded, and still we went on talking. I remember the way you would stab the air with your finger to make a point as you marched along, the way you collapsed on a park bench and fanned yourself with a guidebook as you finished some wordy peroration about the use of public sculpture. The way you could recite poetry at the drop of a hat in your perfect French to illustrate some painting or panorama. The way you could turn anything into the subject for a lecture.

I came back from these outings exhausted, but unable to sleep, my head spinning with all I’d seen. And, of course, went over everything we had talked about. Had I said something stupid? Of course I had, many times over; so had you, but with such confidence no-one dared call it so. That was one of the things I learned; one of the most important things. But even then I think the seeds of our divergence were germinating; I remember a brief flutter of slight annoyance—swiftly suppressed—when you made some sneering remark about Boucher. Well, alright, not to everyone’s taste, all those silly women dressed up as shepherdesses with those bouffant wigs perched on their heads. But look at the way the man painted! He could do anything; I couldn’t believe it when I first saw them. That didn’t matter to you at all, and maybe you were right. But you didn’t see the man’s sense of humour. Do you think he didn’t know he was making these grand aristocrats look faintly absurd? Didn’t you realise that was the point? No; humour was never your strong point. It was all too serious for you. Playfulness has always been absent in your life.

I remember the trip to Saint-Denis best of all, the great cathedral with the sepulchres of the kings in that grimy industrial suburb. It was one of those revelatory moments that come only rarely in a life, all the more so for being so very unexpected. Particularly Louis XII and his queen, those statues; showing both of them in their full glory, regal and powerful, and underneath as corpses, withered, naked and disgusting. As you are, so were we; as we are, so will you be. No sentimentality or hiding. No black crêpe or fine words to hide the reality. These people were able to confront the inevitable full on, and show that even kings must rot. It is our final destination, and something artists have shied away from for generations. We are young and agile; established and comfortable; dead and decayed. Hope, fear and peace. There are only three ages of man, not seven. I am painting the second now.

My failure with that boy on the beach, the most recent, annoyed me because the sculptors in that cathedral had succeeded. I could not understand it. It was a simple enough task, after all; a still-life composition no more complex than an arrangement of artefacts at Julien’s académie. But I failed; all I managed was a bundle of shapeless rags, a sentimental, incoherent mess. It was little better than the sort of thing I would have knocked out for the Evening Post. “Mystery death of boy on beach.” Two paragraphs, page four, illustrated with a grotesque sketch by myself, printed in two garish colours—three if it was sufficiently horrible.

It festered; I am not used to such setbacks. Normally my technique would have sustained me, and allowed me to produce something tolerable enough to revolt the general public. But I no more wanted something accomplished than I wanted something sanitised and artistic. D’you remember that appalling painting by Wallis in the Tate, The Death of Chatterton? Pretty young poet lies sprawled in an elegant pose across the bed after taking arsenic. Ha! That’s not what you look like if you swallow arsenic! You’re covered in filth, you stink, you lie crouched on the floor from the agony, your face screwed up, hideously disfigured as the poison eats away your intestines. You don’t look as though you’ve just dropped off for a nap after too many cucumber sandwiches. But he couldn’t paint that. That wouldn’t have made people think sentimental tripe about doomed artists dying before their time. That’s what I wanted to get away from, and not by painting landscapes or the poor enjoying themselves at the music hall. Real death—which is the stuff of life, after all. I know; I did quite a few suicides when I worked for those magazines. And murders and hangings. But it was always just work, and I only ever had about an hour to rush off a sketch, get back down to the office and help set up the copy. “Dreadful Death in Clapham.” “Shocking Murder in Wandsworth.” “Part-time Prostitute Found in River.” I would have been there when they fished poor Jacky out, had I not become a painter.

So, I took a leaf out of Michelangelo’s book and went to study corpses. There’s a morgue at Quiberon, and the doctor in charge has artistic pretensions and no-one to talk to. In exchange for a little scandalous conversation and a few paintings, he gave me free run of the place. Every corpse that came in, I looked at and studied. The more disfigured and decomposed the better. I became quite expert at depicting the effects of maggots, and of water, and of dog bites on tramps left too long in gutters; excellent in putting down in a few strokes of the pencil the beautiful red line that a knife across the throat will make. Of bones showing through green skin, of skulls beginning to surface through the face. The sort of detail even the most scurrilous of London magazines would not touch, let alone a patron of the arts.

But it still wasn’t good enough, and d’you know why? Because they were dead. They had no character, no personality. Obviously not, you say, and I don’t want to stress the obvious. But the only way you can depict the flight of character, of the soul, is if you have known the person in life. The man who sculpted Louis XII must have known him well. The absence of personality wells out of that statue like a great hole; you can know the man by what is no longer there.

I HOPE YOU NOTICE that I have radically altered my technique since you last saw me. I have done away with those vastly long brushes that used to be my stock in trade. A pity, in some ways, as they looked so good. I remember the photograph that went with the review of my first big show at the Fine Art Society in 1905. I was more proud of the photograph than the reviews, I think, good though they were. Now there, I thought, there is a painter. And it was true. I was a handsome dog, and every inch the artist, standing so proud some three feet from the canvas, with that long thin brush extended before me. A bit like the conductor of an orchestra, forcing my colours to take on the shape and shades I required. Big brush strokes, very Impressionist. But it was all thirty years too late, wasn’t it? We were so proud of ourselves for challenging the establishment, bravely taking on the academicians, banishing the dusty and fusty, the conventional and the staid. But they were already dying on their feet anyway, those old codgers. We didn’t really have to fight; our generation never has. Never will, either; if there is a war now—and people tell me there may be one day—it won’t be us marching along, rifle in hand. We’re too old already. Besides, we were merely imitators, importers of foreign ware into England, with no more originality than the people we so greatly despised. Less, perhaps; you would never have mistaken one of their pictures for a French one; our radicalism consisted of making ourselves copyists.




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