William Gaddis - The Recognitions

— Good, good. If someone picked them up. you can't suppress all of yourself, you know. Valentine watched the brandy bottle raised and tipped over the empty glass.

— I know, he said, watching it himself. His hand quivered somewhat, and the bottle rattled against the edge of the glass.

— Now be careful, my boy, Recktall Brown said, watching him drink it down. — Before we go any. further with this, Valentine said, — I would like to know more about your work, because what I have in mind. The hard surface, for instance. Oil takes years to dry.

— Yes, that. getting the hard surface, it was one of the worst problems. He leaned toward them, his elbows on the table, clutching one hand in the other, and spoke rapidly but with effort. — I've tried everything, every different… I tried mixing my colors on blotting paper, to absorb the oil, and then mixing them with varnish but it dried too quickly, you see? It dried too quickly and it was unalterable. I tried a mixture of stand oil and formaldehyde, but it wasn't right, it wasn't what I wanted. I tried oil of lavender and formaldehyde and I like it better, the oil with an egg tempera, and a varnish glaze. In those two Bouts pictures, in those when I prepared the canvas I laid linen threads on the gesso when it was still wet, you see? in the pattern I wanted for the crackle. Then I baked it, and when it came out of the oven the threads came off and left the pattern. But the best thing, here, I used it here, he said, motioning at the van der Goes reproduction which still lay open on the table, — a thin layer of gesso, over and over on the canvas, and it cracks of its own volition, because of the atmosphere, the changes, you see? This painting is whole egg and oil of lavender, and then glue, dilute glue and the varnish. This one, this is amber varnish, the undercoat of dilute glue shrank faster than the varnish when they dried and cracked it, you see? And a little India ink in the cracks and when that dried there were only particles, like dirt, when the experts came.

— Now take it easy, my boy, sit down, sit down.

— And then the experts came, you see? he said, standing, and rubbed his hand over his eyes, and his chin, leaving a broad smile quivering there when he reached down for the bottle again. — There isn't one test they don't know, and not one that can't be beaten. Not one. That. that's why I couldn't use that varnish medium, it dried so fast that I had to paint too fast, and you can't do that, you can't paint that fast and control these. these things that have to be controlled, do you understand? And an X-ray would have shown up those abrupt strokes, he added. He lifted the glass, and threw back his head to drink it down. — You see, this. controlling this damned world of shapes and smells.

— Sit down, my boy, Recktall Brown said as he started to walk away from them.

— But I haven't told you, after all this work, this. fooling around. Do you know what the best medium is? It's so simple I never dared try it, it's that simple. Glair, the liquid that settles to the bottom when the whites of egg are beaten, with dry powdered pigments, and a layer of clean white of egg over it and the varnish, it's so simple it doesn't need anything, it doesn't need to be baked, it crackles by itself beautifully, as though years, hundreds of years had passed over it. And that, it's. and then the experts come, with their little bottles of alcohol, to see if they can dissolve the fresh paint, but the glue. You never have music here, do you. Never, in all this time.

— Come back here and sit down. We can't talk to you way the hell out in the middle of the room.

— This glair, Basil Valentine said to him. — You sound as though you consider it practically foolproof.

— Yes, that's the word, foolproof. Foolproof, he said, coming back to them.

— That is what we need, Basil.Valentine said, his hands drawn up beneath his chin. — The fools are the ones we must be most careful of. Most secrets are discovered by their accidents, very few by design. Very few, he repeated, looking up. — Foolproof enough, would you say, for a van Eyck?

Brown seemed to be awaiting some violent reaction to this, if it were, as he believed from Valentine's casual tone, the challenge. But he looked up to see it greeted with no more than a shrug.

— Easily, the perfect medium for him, for Jan van Eyck, but he's been done so often.

— Yes, yes, Basil Valentine interrupted impatiently, — there are probably more badly faked Jan van Eycks then any of the others. Hubert, on the other hand.

— Hubert van Eyck?

— It might be the art discovery of the century, if it were absolutely perfect, signed and documented.

— Yes, yes it might, it probably would be.

— If you could do it…

— If I could do it? If I could do it? he said, raising his head.

— How much? Recktall Brown demanded.

— It depends entirely on the picture. Perhaps as much as you got for,all the rest put together.

— That much! What the hell have we been doing fooling around

with these… '

— If he could do it.

— If I could do it! Of course I can do it, he said more calmly, looking down at the van der Goes reproduction. — But listen, they have no right to do this, he went on, crumpling the reproduction into his hand as it tore from the magazine. — You have no right to do this, he said, as Valentine put a hand on Recktall Brown's arm.

— To do what, my dear fellow? — This. these reproductions, they have no right to try to spread one painting out like this. There's only one of them, you know, only one. This. my painting. there's only one, and these reproductions, these cheap fakes is what they are, being scattered everywhere, and they have no right to do that. It cheapens the whole. it's a calumny, that's what it is, on my work, he said, standing with the thing wadded up in his hand.

Basil Valentine took the thin cigarette from his lips and spoke coldly. — Forgery is calumny, he said. — Every piece you do is calumny on the artist you forge.

— It's not. It's not, damn it, I… when I'm working, I… Do you think I do these the way all other forging has been done? Pulling the fragments of ten paintings together and making one, or taking.a… a Dürer and reversing the composition so that the man looks to the right instead of left, putting a beard on him from another portrait, and a hat, a different hat from another, so that they look at it and recognize Dürer there? No, it's. the recognitions go much deeper, much further back, and I… this. the X-ray tests, and ultra-violet and infra-red, the experts with their photomicrography and. macrophotography, do you think that's all there is to it? Some of them aren't fools, they don't just look for a hat or a beard, or a style they can recognize, they look with memories that… go beyond themselves, that go back to… where mine goes.

— Sit down, my boy.

— And. any knock at the door may be the gold inspectors, come to see if I'm using bad materials down there, I… I'm a master painter in the Guild, in Flanders, do you see? And if they come in and find that I'm not using the. gold, they destroy the bad materials I'm using and fine me, and I… they demand that. and this exquisite color of ultramarine, Venice ultramarine I have to take to them for approval, and the red pigment, this brick-red Flanders pigment. because I've taken the Guild oath, not for the critics, the experts, the. you, you have no more to do with me than if you are my descendants, nothing to do with me, and you. the Guild oath, to use pure materials, to work in the sight of God.

— You've had enough of this stuff now, my boy, Recktall Brown said, reaching, too late, for the brandy bottle. — You need to keep a steady hand for what you're doing, all these God damn tiny little details.