It has often seemed to me as if that little house were a silent epitome of modern art criticism, an automatic indicator, or perhaps regulator, of the aesthetic taste of New York.On the first floor, surrounded by all the newest fashions in antiquities and BRIC-A-BRAC, you will see the art of to-day--the works of painters who are precisely in the focus of advertisement, and whose names call out an instant round of applause in the auction-room.On the floors above, in degrees of obscurity deepening toward the attic, you will find the art of yesterday--the pictures which have passed out of the glare of popularity without yet arriving at the mellow radiance of old masters.In the basement, concealed in huge packing-cases, and marked "PARIS--FRAGILE,"--you will find the art of to-morrow; the paintings of the men in regard to whose names, styles, and personal traits, the foreign correspondents and prophetic critics in the newspapers, are now diffusing in the public mind that twilight of familiarity and ignorance which precedes the sunrise of marketable fame.
The affable and sagacious Morgenstern was already well acquainted with the waywardness of Pierrepont's admiration, and with my own persistent disregard of current quotations in the valuation of works of art.He regarded us, I suppose, very much as Robin Hood would have looked upon a pair of plain yeomen who had strayed into his lair.The knights of capital, and coal barons, and rich merchants were his natural prey, but toward this poor but honest couple it would be worthy only of a Gentile robber to show anything but courteous and fair dealing.
He expressed no surprise when he heard what we wanted to see, but smiled tolerantly and led the way, not into the well-defined realm of the past, the present, or the future, but into a region of uncertain fortunes, a limbo of acknowledged but unrewarded merits, a large back room devoted to the works of American painters.Here we found Falconer's picture; and the dealer, with that instinctive tact which is the best part of his business capital, left us alone to look at it.
It showed the mouth of a little river: a secluded lagoon, where the shallow tides rose and fell with vague lassitude, following the impulse of prevailing winds more than the strong attraction of the moon.But now the unsailed harbour was quite still, in the pause of the evening; and the smooth undulations were caressed by a hundred opalescent hues, growing deeper toward the west, where the river came in.Converging lines of trees stood dark against the sky; a cleft in the woods marked the course of the stream, above which the reluctant splendours of an autumnal day were dying in ashes of roses, while three tiny clouds, poised high in air, burned red with the last glimpse of the departed sun.
On the right was a reedy point running out into the bay, and behind it, on a slight rise of ground, an antique house with tall white pillars.It was but dimly outlined in the gathering shadows; yet one could imagine its stately, formal aspect, its precise garden with beds of old-fashioned flowers and straight paths bordered with box, and a little arbour overgrown with honeysuckle.I know not by what subtlety of delicate and indescribable touches--a slight inclination in one of the pillars, a broken line which might indicate an unhinged gate, a drooping resignation in the foliage of the yellowing trees, a tone of sadness in the blending of subdued colours--the painter had suggested that the place was deserted.But the truth was unmistakable.An air of loneliness and pensive sorrow breathed from the picture; a sigh of longing and regret.It was haunted by sad, sweet memories of some untold story of human life.
In the corner Falconer had put his signature, T.F., "LARMONE," 189-, and on the border of the picture he had faintly traced some words, which we made out at last--"A spirit haunts the year's last hours."
Pierrepont took up the quotation and completed it--"A spirit haunts the year's last hours, Dwelling amid these yellowing bowers:
To himself he talks;
For at eventide, listening earnestly, At his work you may hear him sob and sigh, In the walks;Earthward he boweth the heavy stalks Of the mouldering flowers:
Heavily hangs the broad sunflower Over its grave i' the earth so chilly;Heavily hangs the hollyhock, Heavily hangs the tiger-lily.""That is very pretty poetry, gentlemen," said Morgenstern, who had come in behind us, "but is it not a little vague? You like it, but you cannot tell exactly what it means.I find the same fault in the picture from my point of view.There is nothing in it to make a paragraph about, no anecdote, no experiment in technique.It is impossible to persuade the public to admire a picture unless you can tell them precisely the points on which they must fix their admiration.And that is why, although the painting is a good one, Ishould be willing to sell it at a low price."He named a sum of money in three figures, so small that Pierrepont, who often buys pictures by proxy, could not conceal his surprise.
