Lying Prophets | Page 3

whole store of
nervous energy and skill, he would probably paint no more for many
months. His subject was always some transcript from nature, wrought
out with almost brutal vigor and disregard of everything but truth. His
looks belied his work curiously. A small, slight man he was, with
sloping shoulders and the consumptive build. But the breadth of his
head above the ears showed brain, and his gray eyes spoke a strength of
purpose upon which a hard, finely-modeled mouth set the seal. Once he
had painted in the West Indies: a picture of two negresses bathing at
Tobago. Behind them hung low tangles of cactus, melo-cactus and
white-blossomed orchid; while on the tawny rocks glimmered snowy
cotton splashed with a crimson turban; but the marvel of the work lay
in the figures and the refraction of their brown limbs seen through
crystal-clear water. The picture brought reputation to a man who cared
nothing for it; and Barron's "Bathing Negresses" are only quoted here
because they illustrate his method of work. He had painted from the sea
in a boat moored fore and aft; he had kept the two women shivering
and whining in the water for two hours at a time. They could not indeed
refuse the gold he offered for their services, but one never lived to
enjoy the money, for her prolonged ablutions in the cause of art killed
her a week after her work was done.
John Barren was a lonely sybarite with a real love for Nature and
absolutely primitive instincts with regard to his fellow-creatures. The
Land's End had disappointed him; he had found Nature neither grand
nor terrific there, but sleepy and tame as a cat after a full meal. Nor did
he derive any pleasure from the society of his craft at Newlyn. He hated
the clatter of art jargon, he flouted all schools, and pointed out what
nobody doubts now: that the artists of the Cornish village in reality
represented nothing but a community of fellow-workers, all actuated
indeed by love of art, but each developing his own bent without
thought for his neighbor's theory. Barron indeed made some enemies
before he had been in the place a week, and the greater lights liked him

none the better for vehemently disclaiming the honor when they told
him he was one of themselves. "The shape of a brush does not make
men paint alike," he said, "else we were all equal and should only differ
in color. Some of you can no more paint with a square brush than you
can with a knife. Some of you could not paint though your palettes
were set with Nature's own sunset colors. And others of you, if you had
a rabbit's scut at the end of a hop-pole and the gray mud from a rain
puddle, would produce work worth considering. You are a community
of painters--some clever, some hopeless--but you are not a school, and
you may thank God for it."
John Barron was rough tonic, but the fearless little man generally found
an audience at the end of the day in this studio or that. The truth of
much that he said appealed to the lofty-minded and serious; his dry
cynicism, savage dislike of civilization, and frank affection for Nature,
attracted others. He hit hard, but he never resented rough knocks in
return, and no man had seen him out of temper with anything but
mysticism and the art bred therefrom. Upon the whole, however, his
materialism annoyed more than his wit amused.
Upon the evening which followed his insult to the Newlyn gulls,
Barron, with Edmund Murdoch and some other men, was talking in the
studio of one Brady, known to fame as the "Wrecker," from his love for
the artistic representation of maritime disaster. Barron liked this man,
for he was outspoken and held vigorous views, but the two quarreled
freely.
"Fate was a fool when she chucked her presents into the lap of a lazy
beggar like you," said Brady, addressing the visitor. "And thrice a
fool," he added, "to assort her gifts so ill."
"Fate is a knave, a mad thing playing at cat's cradle with the threads of
our wretched little lives," answered John Barron, "she is a coward--a
bully. She hits the hungry below the belt; she heaps gold into the lap of
the old man, but not till he has already dug his own grave to come at it;
she gives health to those who must needs waste all their splendid
strength on work; and wealth to worthless beings like myself who are
always ailing and who never spend a pound with wisdom. Make no

dark cryptic mystery of Fate when you paint her. She looks to me like a
mischievous monkey poking sticks into an