William Gaddis - The Recognitions

— Seven pictures, Wyatt said, making no effort to expose them.

— I am interested in your work.

— Oh, you've. seen it?

— No, no, hardly. But I see here (motioning toward the straight easel, where a canvas stood barely figured) — that it is interesting. I am writing the art column in La Macule. Crémer's cigarette, which he had not taken from his lips since he appeared, had gone out at about the length of a thumbnail. He looked rested, assured, hardly a likely visitor at dawn. — I shall probably review your pictures next week, he added after a pause which had left Wyatt smoothing the hair on the back of his head, his face confused.

— Oh, then… of course, you want to look at them now?

— Don't trouble yourself, Crémer said, walking off toward the window. — You are studying in Paris?

— No. I did in Munich.

— In Germany. That is too bad. Your style is German, then? German impressionism?

— No, no, not. quite different. Not so…

— Modern? German impressionism, modern?

— No, I mean, the style of the early Flemish…

— Van Eyck.

— But less.

— Less stern? Yes. Roger de la Pasture, perhaps?

— What?

— Van der Weyden, if you prefer. Crémer shrugged. He was standing with his back to the window. — In Germany.

— I did one picture in the manner of Memling, very much the manner of Memling. The teacher, the man I studied with, Herr Koppel, Herr Koppel compared it to David, Gheerardt David's painting The Flaying of the Unjust Judge.

— Memlinc, alors.

— But I lost it there, but… do you want to look at the work I've done here?

— Don't trouble. But I should like to write a good review for you.

— I hope you do. It could help me a great deal.

— Yes. Exactly. They stood in silence for almost a minute. — Will you sit down? Wyatt asked finally.

Crémer showed no sign of hearing him but a slight shrug. He half turned to the window and looked out. — You live in a very. clandestine neighborhood, for a painter? he murmured agreeably. In the darkening room the cigarette gone out. looked like a sore on his lip.

— The anonymous atmosphere. Wyatt commenced.

— But of course, Crémer interrupted. There was a book on the floor at his feet, and he moved it with the broad toe of one shoe. — We recall Degas, eh? he went on in the same detached tone of pleasantry, — his remark, that the artist must approach his work in the same frame of mind in which the criminal commits his deed. Eh? Yes. He approached Wyatt slightly hunched, his hands down in his pockets. — The reviews can make a great difference. He smiled. — All the difference.

— Difference?

— To selling your pictures.

— Well then, Wyatt said looking away from the blemished smile, down to the floor, bringing his arms together behind him twisted until he'd got hold of both elbows, and his face, thin and exhausted, seemed to drain of life. — Yes, that. that's up to the pictures.

— It's not, of course, Crémer said evenly.

— What do you mean? Wyatt looked up, startled, dropping his arms.

— I am in a position to help you greatly.

— Yes, yes but…

— Art criticism pays very badly, you know.

— But. well? Well? His face creased.

— If you should guarantee me, say, one-tenth of the sale price of whatever we sell…

— We? You? You?

— I could guarantee you excellent reviews. Nothing changed in Crémer's face. Wyatt's eyes burned as he looked, turning green. — Are you surprised? Crémer asked, and his face changed now, expressing studied surprise, scorning to accept; while before him Wyatt looked about to fall from exhaustion.

— You? For my work. you want me to pay you, for. for…

— Yes, think about it, said Crémer, turning to the door.

— No, I don't need to. It's insane, this. proposition. I don't want it. What do you want of me? he went on, his voice rising as

Crémer opened the door. There was hardly light, not enough to cast a shadow, left in the room. As they had talked, each became more indistinct, until Crémer opened the 'door, and the light of the minuterie threw his Hat shadow across the sill. — I regret that I disturbed you, he said. — I think you need rest, perhaps? But think about it. Eh?

VVyatt followed him to the door, crying out, — Why did you come here? Now? Why do you come at dawn with these things?

Crémer had already started down the stairs. — At dawn? he called back, pausing. — Why my dear fellow, it's evening. It's dinner time. Then the sounds of his feet on the stairs, and the light of the minuterie failed abruptly, leaving Wyatt in his doorway clutching at its frame, while the steps disappeared below unfaltering in the darkness.

II faut toujours en avoir sur soi, de 1'argent, vous savez.

Like lions, out of the gates, into the circus arena, cars roared into the open behind the Opera from the mouth of the Rue Mogador. Around it this faked Imperial Rome lay in pastiche on the banks of its Tiber: though Tiber's career, from the Apennine ravines of Tuscany, skirting the Sabine mountains to course through Rome and reach with two arms into the sea, finds unambitious counterpart in the Seine, diked and dammed across the decorous French countryside, proper as wallpaper. Nevertheless, they had done their best with what they had. The Napoleons tried very hard. The first one combed his hair, and that of his wife and brothers, like Julius Caesar and his family combed theirs. ]. L. David (having painted pictures of Brutus, Andromache, and the Horatii) painted his picture looking, as best he could manage, like Julius Caesar; and Josephine doing her very best (the Coronation) to look above suspicion herself. Everyone rallied round, erecting arches, domes, pediments, and copied what the Romans had copied from the Greeks. Empire furniture, candlesticks, coiffures. somewhere beyond them hung the vision of Constantine's Rome, its eleven forums, ten basilicas, eighteen aqueducts, thirty-seven city gates, two arenas, two circuses, thirty-seven triumphal arches, five obelisks, four hundred and twenty-three temples with their statues of the gods in ivory and gold. But all that was gone. There was no competition now. Not since Pope Urban VIII had declared the Coliseum a public quarry.

As the spirit of collecting art began in Rome, eventually it began in Paris, reached the proportions of the astounding collection of that wily Sicilian blood the Cardinal Mazarin, murmuring to his art as he left in decline and exile, — Que j'ai tant aimé, French enough to add, — et qui m'ont tant couté. If the Roman connoisseur could distinguish among five kinds of patina on bronze by the smell, French sensitivities soon became as cultivated. If, to please the Roman connoisseur, sapphires were faked from obsidian, sardonyx from cheap colored jasper, French talents were as versatile: "Un client desire des Corots? L'article manque sur le marché? Fabri-quons-en. " (And one day, of Corot's twenty-five hundred paintings, seventy-eight hundred were to be found in America.) Even then they knew the value of art. Or of knowing the value of art. As Coulanges said to Madame de Sévigné, —Pictures are bullion.

Paris, fortunate city! by now a swollen third of the way into the twentieth century, still to be importuned by those who continued to take her at her own evaluation. Perhaps a kindred homage which rang across the sea was well earned (from a land whose length was still ringing with the greeting — Hello sucker!): perhaps fifty million Frenchmen couldn't be wrong. Four million of them, at any rate, were nursing venereal diseases; and among the ladies syphilis brought about some forty thousand miscarriages that year. "Paris": a sobriquet to conjure with (her real name Lutetia), it bore magic in the realm of Art, as synonymous with the word itself as that of Mnesarete, "Phryne," had once been with Love. Long since, of course, in the spirit of that noblesse oblige which she personified, Paris had withdrawn from any legitimate connection with works of art, and directly increased her entourage of those living for Art's sake. One of these, finding himself on trial just two or three years ago, had made the reasonable point that a typical study of a Barbizon peasant signed with his own name brought but a few hundred francs, but signed Millet, ten thousand dollars; and the excellent defense that this subterfuge had not been practiced on Frenchmen, but on English and Americans "to whom you can sell anything". here, in France, where everything was for sale.