is because I suppose you do want to paint a sky, that for that very
reason I wished to give you this little piece of advice, and to tell you
that there is too much blue in it.'
'And pray, Mr Amateur, when was there ever a sky seen without blue?'
'I am no amateur; but I tell you once more, that there is too much blue.
And now do as you like; and if you do not think you have enough, you
can put more.'
'This is entirely too bad!' cried the now exasperated sign-painter. 'You
are an old fool, and know nothing of painting. I should like to see you
make a sky without blue.'
'I do not say I am a good hand at a sky; but if I did set about it, there
should be no blue.'
'A pretty job it would be!'
'It would look like something, at all events.'
'That is as much as to say mine is like nothing at all.'
'No indeed, for it is very like a dish of spinach, and very like a vile
daub, or like anything else you please.'
'A dish of spinach! a vile daub!' cried the artist of Brabant in a rage. 'I,
the pupil of Ruysdael--I, fourth cousin to Gerard Dow! and you pretend
to know more of my art than I do--an art I have practised with such
credit at Antwerp, Louvain, and Liege! A dish of spinach, indeed!' And
by this time the fury of the insulted painter had increased to such a
degree, that he seized David by the arm, and shaking him violently,
added: 'Do you know, you old dotard, that my character has been long
established? I have a red horse at Mechlin, a stag at Namur, and a
Charlemagne at Aix-la-Chapelle, that no one has ever seen without
admiring!'
'This is beyond all patience,' said David; and suddenly extricating
himself from the man's grasp, and snatching his palette from him, he
was up the ladder in an instant, shouting: 'Wait awhile, and you shall
have yourself to admire, with your fool's pate and your ass's ears!'
'Stop, stop, you villain!' roared the luckless artist, pale with
consternation. 'My splendid sign! A painting worth thirty-five francs! I
am ruined and undone!' And he continued shaking the ladder, and
pouring out a torrent of abuse upon David, who, caring neither for the
reproaches of his victim, nor for the crowd that the sudden clamour had
attracted, went on pitilessly effacing the 'Break of Day,' and mingling
in one confused mass sky and sun, and trees and figures; or what was
intended, at least, to represent them. And now--not less rapid in
creating than in destroying--and with the lightest possible touch of his
brush, the new sign-painter sketched and finished, with magic rapidity,
a sky with the gray tints of early dawn, and a group of three men, glass
in hand, watching the rising sun; one of these figures being a striking
likeness of the whitewasher, shewn at once by his bushy eyebrows and
snub-nose.
The crowd, that had at first shewn every inclination to take the part of
their countryman against a stranger unfairly interfering with him, now
stood quietly watching the outlines as they shone through the first
layers of colour, and shouts of applause burst from them as the figures
grew beneath the creative hand of the artist. The tavern-keeper himself
now swelled the number of admirers, having come out to ascertain the
cause of the tumult; and even the fourth-cousin of Gerard Dow felt his
fury fast changing into admiration.
'I see it all now,' he said to those nearest him in the crowd. 'He is a
French or Dutch sign-painter, one of ourselves, and he only wanted to
have a joke against me. It is but fair to own that he has the real knack,
and paints even better than I do.'
The artist to whom this equivocal compliment was paid, was now
coming down from the ladder amid the cheers of the spectators, when a
new admirer was added to them in the person of a man who, mounted
on a fine English horse, seemed inclined to ride over the crowd in his
eagerness to get a good view of the painting.
'That picture is mine!' he exclaimed; 'I will have it. I will buy it, even if
I have to cover it with guineas!'
'What do you mean?' asked the tavern-keeper.
'I mean, that I will give any price you choose to name for that sign,'
answered the stranger.
'The picture is not to be sold, young man; I could not think of parting
with it,' said the whitewasher with as much paternal pride as if it had
been indeed his workmanship.
'Certainly not,' said the vender of
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