The Collectors | Page 5

endure for long. Later in the intervals of colouring
photographs, illuminating window-shades, or whatever came to hand,
he worked out the theory which finally led him to the feet of Corot. It
was, in short, that the proper subject for an artist deficient in linear
design is sunrise.
"He explained the matter to me with zest. 'By morning you've half
forgotten the look of things. All night you've seen only dreams that

don't have any true form, and when the first light comes, nothing shows
solid for what it is. The mist uncovers a little here and there, and you
wonder what's beneath. It's all guesswork and nothing sure. Take any
morning early when I look out of my attic window to the North River.
There's nothing but a heap of fog, grey or pink, as there's more or less
sun behind. It gets a little thick over toward Jersey, and that may be the
shore, or again it mayn't. Then a solid bit of vi'let shows high up, and I
guess it's Castle Stevens, but perhaps it ain't. Then a pale-yellow streak
shoots across the river farther up and I take it to be the Palisades, but
again it may be jest a ray of sunshine. You see there really ain't no earth;
it's all air and light. That's what a man that can't drore ought to paint;
that's what my namesake, Cameel Corot, did paint better than any one
that ever lived.'
"At this point of his confession John Campbell glared savagely at me
for assent, and set down a sadly frayed and noxious stogy on
Nickerson's black walnut. I hastened to agree, though much of the
doctrine was heresy to a realist, only objecting: 'But one really has to
draw a scene such as you describe just like any other. In fact, the
drawing of atmosphere is the most difficult branch of our art. Many
very good painters, like my master, Courbet, have given it up.' 'Corbet!'
he replied contemptuously; 'he didn't give it up; he never even seen it.
But don't I know it's hard, sir? For years I tried to paint it, and I never
got nothing but the fog; when I put in more I lost that. They're pretty,
those sketches--like watered silk or the scum in the docks with the sun
on it; but, Lord, there ain't nothing into 'em, and that's the truth. At last,
after fumbling around for years, I happened to walk into Vogler's
gallery one day and saw my first Corot. Ther' it was--all I had been
trying for. It was the kind of droring I knew ought to be, where a man
sets down more what he feels than what he knows. I knew I was
beginning too late, but I loved that way of working. I saw all the Corots
I could, and began to paint as much as I could his way. I got almost to
have his eye, but of course I never got his hand. Nobody could, I guess,
not even an educated artist like you, or they'd all a don' it.'
* * * * *

"After this awakening John Campbell began the artist's life afresh with
high hopes. His first picture in the sweet new style was honestly called
'Sunrise in Berkshire,' though he had interwoven with his own
reminiscences of the farm several motives from various compositions
of his great exemplar. He signed the canvas Campbell Corot, in the
familiar capital letters, because he didn't want to take all the credit;
because he desired to mark emphatically the change in his manner, and
because it struck him as a good painting name justified by the
resemblance between his surname and the master's Christian name. It
was a heartfelt homage in intention. If the disciple had been familiar
with Renaissance usages, he would undoubtedly have signed himself
John of Camille.
"'Sunrise in Berkshire' fetched sixty dollars in a downtown auction
room, the highest price John had ever received; but this was only the
beginning of a bewildering rise in values. When John next saw the
picture, Campbell had been deftly removed, and the landscape, being
favourably noticed in the press, brought seven hundred dollars in an
uptown salesroom. John happened on it again in Beilstein's gallery,
where the price had risen to thirteen hundred dollars--a tidy sum for a
small Corot in those early days. At that figure it fell to a noted collector
whose walls it still adorns. Here Campbell Corot's New England
conscience asserted itself. He insisted on seeing Beilstein in person and
told him the facts. Beilstein treated the visitor as an impostor and
showed him the door, taking his address, however, and scornfully
bidding him make good his story by painting a similar picture,
unsigned. For this, if it was