THE CAREER OF AN ARTIST

by: Francis A. Durivage (1814-1881)

The following story is reprinted from The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales. Francis A. Durivage. Boston: Sanborn, 1856.

I woke up one morning and found myself famous.

—Byron.

Julian Montfort was a farmer's boy; bred up to the plough handle and cart tail. His father and mother were plain, honest people, of hard-working habits and limited ideas, and without the slightest dash of romance in their temperaments. Their house, their lands were unprepossessing in appearance. The soil was impoverished by long and illiberal culture; and old Montfort had a true old-fashioned prejudice against trees. Instead of smiling hedgerows, with here and there a weeping elm or plumy evergreen to cast their graceful shadows upon the pasture land, his acres were enclosed with harsh stone walls, or an unpicturesque Virginia fence with its zigzag of rude rails. The farmer had an equal prejudice against books, "book larnin', and book-larned men." Of course, with these ideas, Julian's education was limited to a few quarters' schooling under an old pedagogue, whose native language was Dutch, and who never took very kindly to the English tongue. Besides, teaching was only an episode with him; for his vocation was that of a clergyman, and he held forth on Sundays in alternate Dutch and English to his little congregation—as is still the custom in many of the small agricultural parishes in New York State, where the scene of our veritable story lies.

Our hero, young Julian, early began to show a restiveness under the training he received, which sadly perplexed his plain matter-of-fact father. The latter could not conceive why the boy should sometimes leave his plough in the furrow, and sit upon a hillock, gazing curiously and admiringly upon a simple wild flower. He knew not why the youth should stand with his eyes fixed upon the western sky when it was pavilioned with crimson, and gold, and purple; or later yet, when, one by one, the stars came timidly forth and took their places in the darkening heaven. He shook his head at these manifestations, and confidently informed his help-mate that he feared the boy was "not right"—significantly touching, as he spoke, that portion of his anatomy where he fondly imagined a vast quantity of brain of very superior quality was safely stowed away, guarded by a sufficient quantity of skull to protect it against any accident. Neither he nor the good wife imagined, for a moment, that Julian was a genius, and that his talent, circumscribed by circumstances, was struggling for an outlet for its development.

At last the divine spark within him was kindled into flame. An itinerant portrait painter came round, with his tools of trade, and did the dominie in brown and red, and the squire's daughter in vermilion and flake white, and set the whole village agog with his marvellous achievements. Julian cultivated his acquaintance, received some secret instructions in the A B C of art, and bargained for some drawing and painting materials. His aspirations had at length found an object. Long and painfully he labored in secret; but his advances were rapid, for he took nature as a model. At last he ventured to display his latest achievement—a small portrait of his father. It was first shown to his mother, and filled her with astonishment and delight. It is the privilege of woman, however circumstanced, to appreciate and applaud true genius. Of course, Moliere's housekeeper occurs to the reader as an illustration. The picture was next shown to the old man. He gazed at it with a sort of silent horror, puffing the smoke from his pipe in short, spasmodic jerks, and slowly shaking his head before he spoke.

"Do you know it, father?" asked the young artist.

"Know it!" exclaimed the old man. "Yes—yes—I see myself there like I was lookin' into a glass. There's my nose, and eyes, and mouth, and hair; yes, and there's my pipe. It ain't right—it can't be right—it's witchcraft. Satan must ha' helped you, boy—you couldn't never ha' done it without the aid of the evil one."

This was a sad damper. But just then the dominie luckily happened in to take a pipe with his parishioner. He pronounced the work excellent, and satisfied his old friend's doubts as to the honesty of the transaction. Julian blessed the old man in his heart for the comfort he afforded.

And now the fame of the young painter flew through the village. The tavern keeper ordered a head of General Washington for his sign board, the old one—originally a portrait of the Duke of Cambridge with the court dress painted out—not satisfying some of his critical customers. And for the blacksmith, Montfort painted a rampant black horse, prevented from falling backward by a solid tail. The stable keeper also gave him orders for sundry coats of arms to be depicted on wagon panels and sleigh dashers, so that the incipient artist had plenty of orders and not a little cash.

But he soon grew tired of this local reputation. He panted for the association of kindred spirits; for the impulse and example to be found in some great centre of civilization; for refinement, fame—all that is dear to an ardent imagination. And so, one morning, he announced his intention of seeking his fortune in the city of New York.

His mother was sad, but did not oppose his wishes; his father shook his head, as he always did when any thing was proposed—no matter what. The old gentleman seemed to derive great pleasure from shaking his head, and no one interfered with so harmless an amusement.

"Goin' to York, hey?" said he, emitting sundry puffs of smoke. "The Yorkers are a curious set of people, boy. I read into a paper once't about how they car' on—droppin' pocket books, and sellin' brass watches for gold, and knockin' people down and stompin' onto 'em."

"But the dominie thinks I might make money there," said the young man.

"O, then you'd better go. The dominie's got a longer head than you or I, boy," said the old man.

"Yes, father," said the youth, kindling with animation. "In New York I am sure to win fame and fortune. I shall come back, then, and buy you a better farm, and hire hands for you, so that you won't be obliged to work so hard—and you can set out trees."

"Hain't no opinion of trees," said the old man, shaking his head.

"Well, well, father, you shall have money, and do what you like with it; for my part I shall be content with fame."

"Fame! what is that?" said the old man, laying down his pipe in bewilderment.

"Fame! Do you ask what fame is?" exclaimed the romantic boy. But he paused, convinced in a moment of the perfect futility of attempting to convey an idea of the unsubstantial phantom to the old man's intellect. Perhaps the old farmer was the better philosopher of the two.

But Julian gained his point, and departed for the great city—the goal of so many struggles, the grave of so many hopes. He was at first dazzled by the splendors of the artificial life, into the heart of which he plunged; and then, with a homesick feeling, he sighed for that verdurous luxury of nature he had left. He missed the trees—for he thought the shabby and rusty foliage of the Battery and Park hardly worthy of that name. But, in time to save him from utter disappointment and heart sickness, there opened on his vision the glorious dawning of the world of art. He passed from gallery to gallery, and from studio to studio, drinking in the beauties that unfolded before him with the eyes of his body and his soul. He was enraptured, dazzled, enchanted. Then he settled down to work in his humble room, economizing the scanty funds he had brought with him to the city. Like many young aspirants, he grasped, at first, at the most difficult subjects. He constantly groped for a high ideal. He would fly before he had learned to walk. With an imperfect knowledge of architecture and anatomy, and a limited stock of information, he would paint history—mythology. He sought to illustrate poetry, and dared attempt scenes from the Bible, Shakspeare, and Milton. He failed, though there were glimpses of grandeur and glory in his faulty attempts.

Then he turned back, with a sickening feeling, to the elements of art, distasteful as he found them. It was hard to pore over rectangles and curves, bones and muscles, angles and measurements, after sporting with irregular forms and fascinating colors. He tried portraiture, but he had no feeling for the business. He could not transfigure the dull and commonplace heads he was to copy. He had not the nice tact that makes beauty of ugliness without the loss of identity. He could not ennoble vulgarians. The sordid man bore the stamp of baseness on his canvas. His pictures were too true; and truth is death to the portrait painter.

He began to grow morbid in his feelings, and was fast verging to a misanthrope. His clothes grew shabby, and looked shabbier for his careless way of wearing them. He was often cold and hungry. There were times when he viewed with envy and hate the evidences of prosperity he saw about him. He railed against those pursuits of life which made men rich and prosperous. He began to think with the French demagogue, that "property was a theft," and to regard with great favor the socialistic doctrines then coming into vogue. The American social system he pronounced corrupt and rotten, and deserving to be uprooted and subverted. And this was the rustic boy, who, a few months before, had left his home so full of hope, and generous feeling, and high aspiration.

There were times when he yearned for the humble scenes of his boyhood. But he was too proud to throw up his pencils and palette, and go back to the old farm house; and so he found a vent for his home feeling in painting some of the scenes of his earliest life—the rustic dances, the huskings, the haymakings, and junketings with which he was so familiar.

One of these pictures—a rustic dance was the subject—he sent to a gilder's to be framed. He had consecrated three dollars to this purpose, and went one day to see how his commission had been executed. He found the picture framer, who was also a picture dealer, in his shirt sleeves, talking with a middle-aged gentleman, who was praising his performance.

"Really a very clever thing," said the gentleman, scanning the painting through his gold-bowed eye glasses.

"The composition, coloring, and light and shade, are admirable; but the life, animation, and naturalness of the figures make its great charm. Ah, why don't our artists study to produce life as it exists around them, and as they themselves know it and feel it, instead of giving us the gods and goddesses of a defunct and false religion, and scenes three thousand miles and years away?"

"Mr. Greville," said the picture framer, "allow me to make you acquainted with the artist, Mr. Montfort; he's a next-door neighbor of yours—lives at No ——, Broadway."

"Mr. Montfort," said the gentleman, warmly shaking the hand the artist shyly extended, "you found me admiring your work. And I'm sure I did not know I had so talented a neighbor. I shall be glad to be better acquainted with you. I presume your picture is for sale."

"Not so, sir," replied the artist, coldly. "It is a reminiscence of earlier and happier days. It was painted for my own satisfaction, and I shall keep it as long as I have a place to hang it in. It is a common mistake, sir, with our patrons, to suppose they can buy our souls as well as our labor."

Mr. Greville's cheek flushed; but as he glanced at the shabby exterior and wan face of the artist, his color faded, and he answered gently—

"Believe me, Mr. Montfort, I am not one of the persons you describe—if, indeed, they exist elsewhere but in your imagination. I should be the last person to fail in sympathy for the high-toned feelings of an artist; for in early life I was thought to manifest a talent for art—and, indeed, I had a strong desire to follow the vocation."

"And you abandoned it—you turned a deaf ear to the divine inspiration—you preferred wealth to glory—to be one of the vulgar many rather than to belong to the choice few. I congratulate you, Mr. Greville, on your taste."

"You judge me harshly, Mr. Montfort," replied the gentleman, pleasantly. "I am hardly required to justify my choice of calling to a perfect stranger; and yet your very frankness induces me to say a word or two of the motives which impelled me. My parents were poor. An artist's life seemed to hold no immediate prospects of competence. They to whom I owed my being might die of want before I had established a reputation. I had an opportunity to enter commercial life advantageously. I prospered. I have lived to see the declining days of my parents cheered by every comfort, and to rear a family in comfort and opulence. One of my boys promises to make a good artist. Fortunately, I can bestow on him the means of following the bent of his inclination. Instead of being an indifferent painter myself, I am an extensive purchaser of works of art, so that my conscience acquits me of any very great wrong in the course I adopted."

Montfort was silent; he was worsted in the argument.

"Mr. Montfort," pursued the gentleman, after a pause, "my evenings are always at my disposal, and I like to surround myself with men of talent. I have already a large circle of acquaintances among artists, musicians, and literary men, and once a week they meet at my house; I shall be very happy to see you among us. To-night is my evening of reception—will you join us?"

Proud and shy as he was, Montfort could not help accepting an invitation so frankly and pleasantly tendered. He promised to come.

"One favor more," said Mr. Greville. "You won't sell that picture. Will you lend it to me for a day or two?"

"I cannot refuse you, of course, Mr. Greville."

"If you have the slightest objection, say so frankly," said the kind-hearted merchant.

"I have not the slightest objection, Mr. Greville. It is entirely at your disposal."

Mr. Greville was profuse in his thanks.

"Shall I send it to your house?" said the picture framer.

"No, Mr. Tennant," replied the merchant. "It is too valuable to be trusted out of my hands. I am personally responsible, and I fear that I am not rich enough to remunerate the artist, if any harm happens to it."

With these words, bowing to the artist, Mr. Greville took the picture carefully under his arm, and left the shop, Montfort soon following.

"Well, I declare," said the picture framer, when he was left alone, "artists is queer animils, and no mistake. Neglect 'em, and it makes 'em as mad as a short-horned bull in fly time; coax 'em and pat 'em, and they lets fly their heels in your face. Seems to me, if I was an artist, I shouldn't be particular about being a hog, too. There ain't no sense in it. Now, it beats my notion all to pieces to see how Mr. Greville could talk so pleasantly and gentlemanly to that dratted Montfort, and he flyin' into his face all the time like a tarrier dog. I'd a punched his head for him, I would—if they'd had me up afore the Sessions for saltin' and batterin'. Consequently it's better to be a pictur' framer than a pictur' painter. Cause why?—a pictur' framer is a gentleman, and a pictur' painter is a hog."

There was a good deal of truth in what Mr. Tennant said, mixed up with a good deal of uncharitableness. But what did he know of the genus irritabile vatum?

Evening came; and after many misgivings, Montfort, in an eclectic costume, selected from his whole wardrobe, at a late hour, ventured to emerge from his humble domicile, and present himself at the rosewood portal of his aristocratic neighbor. He soon found himself in the dazzling drawing room, bewildered by the lights, and the splendor of the decoration and the furniture. Mr. Greville saw his embarrassment, and hastened to dispel it. He shook him warmly by the hand, and presented him to his lady and daughter, and then to a crowd of guests. A distinguished artist begged the honor of an introduction to him, and he soon found himself among people who understood him, and with whom he could converse at his ease. Though he was lionized, he was lionized by people who understood the sensitiveness of artistic natures. They flattered delicately and tastefully. Their incense excited, but did not intoxicate or suffocate. In one of the drawing rooms the gratified artist beheld his picture placed in an admirable light, the cynosure of all eyes, and the theme of all lips.

"I am certainly very much indebted to you for placing it so advantageously," said the artist to his host. "It owes at least half its success to the arrangement of the light."

"Do you hear that, Caroline?" asked Mr. Greville, turning to his beautiful daughter, who stood smiling beside him.

"I was afraid I had made some mistake in the arrangement," said the beautiful girl, blushing with pleasure.

Montfort attempted a complimentary remark, but his tongue failed him. He would have given worlds for the self-possession of some of the nonchalant dandies he saw hovering around the peerless beauty. He was forced to content himself with awkwardly bowing his thanks.

In the latter part of the evening, one of the rooms was cleared for a dance. Montfort was solicited to join in a quadrille, and a beautiful partner was even presented to his notice; but he wanted confidence and knowledge, and he had no faith in the integrity of the gaiter shoes he had vamped up for the occasion, so that he was forced to decline. This incident revived some of his morbid feelings that had begun to slumber, and he caught himself muttering something about the "frivolities of fashion."

He thought to make his exit unnoticed; but Mr. Greville detected him, and urged him to repeat his visit.

The next day, during his reception hours, several visitors called—an unheard-of thing. They glanced indifferently at his mythological daubs, but were enthusiastic in their praises of his rustic subjects. The day following, more visitors came. He was offered and accepted four hundred dollars for one of his cabinet pictures. In a word, orders flowed in upon him; he could hardly paint fast enough to supply the demand. He became rather fastidious in his dress—patronized the first tailors and boot makers, cultivated the graces, and took lessons in the waltz and polka. At Mr. Greville's, and some of the other houses he visited, he was remarked as being somewhat of a dandy. And this was Montfort the misanthrope—Montfort the socialist—Montfort the agrarian.

An important episode in his career was an order to paint the portrait of Miss Caroline Greville. He had already had three or four sittings, and the picture was approaching completion; then the work suddenly ceased. Day after day the artist pleaded engagements. At the same time he discontinued his visits at the house.

Mr. Greville, somewhat offended, called on Montfort for an explanation. He found his daughter's picture covered by a curtain.

"My dear sir," said he, "how does it happen that you can't go on with that picture? My wife is very anxious about it."

"I can never finish it," said the artist sadly.

"How so, my young friend?"

"Mr. Greville, I will be frank with you. I love your daughter; I, a poor artist, have dared to lift my eyes to the child of the opulent merchant. I have never in look or word, though, led her to divine my feelings—the secret is in my own keeping. But I cannot see her day after day—I cannot scan her beautiful and innocent features, or listen to the brilliant flow of her conversation, without agony. This has compelled me, sir, to suspend my work."

"Mr. Julian Montfort," said the merchant, "you seem bent—excuse me—on making yourself miserable. You are no longer a poor artist; you have a fortune in your pencil. Your profession is now a surer thing than mine. There is no gentleman in the city who ought not to be proud of your alliance; and if you can make yourself acceptable to my daughter, why, take her and be happy."

How Julian sped in his wooing may be inferred from the fact that, at a certain wedding ceremony in Grace Church, he performed the important part of bridegroom to the bride of Miss Caroline Greville; and after the usual quantity of hand shakings, and tears, and kisses, and all the usual efforts to make a wedding resemble a funeral as much as possible, Mr. and Mrs. Montfort took passage in one of the Havre steamers for an extensive tour upon the European continent.

When they returned, Mr. Montfort's reputation rose higher than ever, of course, and he made money with marvellous rapidity. He is now as well known in Wall Street as in his studio, has a town and country house, is a strong conservative in politics, and talks very learnedly about the moneyed interest. He has made some efforts to transplant his good old father and mother to New York; but they prefer residing at his villa, and taking care of his Durham cattle and Suffolk pigs, and seeing that his "Cochin Chinas" and "Brahma Pootras" do not trample down the children when they go out to feed the poultry of a summer morning.