Read Online A Charmed Life by Mary McCarthy - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Mary McCarthy
Tags: General Fiction
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personality-nucleus was blown apart into its component solids. There was a geyser of smoke in the middle representing the moment of fission; he was trying to get time, the fourth dimension, into his painting. “I think I see her nose,” Miles said finally, when he had backed up against the farther wall.
THREE
M ILES WAS NONPLUSSED BY the portrait. It reminded him a little of science fiction and a little of old-fashioned movie music and, most of all, of Jesuit sermons on Hell. It conveyed fury and conflict. It was, he supposed, what you might call program painting. “It represents fission,” said Warren. “I’m using that as the theme for this whole series of portraits.” Miles made an impatient gesture. Warren had explained the theory behind his painting before; he was trying to express the fourth dimension or the general theory of relativity or something of the kind—Jane’s father, a scientist, had put him up to it. This sort of talk did not interest Miles. Theory, in artists, did not matter to him, only results. “By their fruits, ye shall know them,” he always said, sententiously. He had first known Warren in his so-called quantum phase, which was succeeded by his galactic phase: Warren seemed to think that progress was mandatory in art and bubbled about advances and setbacks—he had lost three years, he had once confided, when he let Picasso lead him up the garden walk. Most artists talked that way nowadays—perhaps they had always done so; and most of them had a father-figure in the background who supplied the motor-ideas. They were all boy scouts in their corduroy fashion, eager beavers, following the leader, some jackleg critic or straw-boss philosopher.
But the work was something else again. Whatever nonsense he spouted, Warren was an able draftsman. He had got the hair just right—a fair skein of silk streaming across the canvas. In Miles’s desk drawer, at home, among the keepsakes of his previous marriages—a pair of tiny gloves, a ribboned garter, an old packet of fish-skins—there was a tress of Martha’s hair, now dulled, that had once shone and rippled like the hair in Warren’s picture. And Warren had caught something of Martha’s temperament in the blunt tilt of the nose and the tiny, staring eyehole of the nostril. “Why, it’s the best thing you’ve done,” Miles suddenly decided. The other three looked at him, wonderingly. Miles read Helen’s questioning gaze. “Isn’t it rather dark?” she murmured. She meant academic. There were two opinions in New Leeds on the subject of Warren’s painting—the one that called it too modern and the one that called it academic. Among the summer crowd, Warren’s quest for the fourth dimension was considered rather a joke, a sad joke, because he was a nice man. There was a lot of irony in the position, Miles had often reflected. If Warren had been a carpenter or a plumber, he could have made his marks as a naif painter with a scientific “vision,” but his art-school training rendered him funny ha-ha to the cognoscenti, among whom Miles did not number himself. In the days when the poor devil used to have exhibitions in the rug-and-craft shop on the village green, everybody turned up, out of friendship for the Coes, and quietly snickered into their sleeve at the sign hand-lettered by Warren—“Prices on Request.” He had never sold a canvas in all his years up here, which, Martha used to claim, was a sort of achievement, considering the local taste. He could not even give one away: people protested that they were too big or too dark for a seashore house.
Miles began to pace up and down. His present wife’s attitude annoyed him—she was too conventional in her responses. He stopped by the liquor tray and poured himself a fresh drink. He was thinking of Martha. He had always had a weakness for intelligent women, though he knew them to be bad for him, like drink or certain kinds of food. They disagreed with him, in both senses of the
THREE
M ILES WAS NONPLUSSED BY the portrait. It reminded him a little of science fiction and a little of old-fashioned movie music and, most of all, of Jesuit sermons on Hell. It conveyed fury and conflict. It was, he supposed, what you might call program painting. “It represents fission,” said Warren. “I’m using that as the theme for this whole series of portraits.” Miles made an impatient gesture. Warren had explained the theory behind his painting before; he was trying to express the fourth dimension or the general theory of relativity or something of the kind—Jane’s father, a scientist, had put him up to it. This sort of talk did not interest Miles. Theory, in artists, did not matter to him, only results. “By their fruits, ye shall know them,” he always said, sententiously. He had first known Warren in his so-called quantum phase, which was succeeded by his galactic phase: Warren seemed to think that progress was mandatory in art and bubbled about advances and setbacks—he had lost three years, he had once confided, when he let Picasso lead him up the garden walk. Most artists talked that way nowadays—perhaps they had always done so; and most of them had a father-figure in the background who supplied the motor-ideas. They were all boy scouts in their corduroy fashion, eager beavers, following the leader, some jackleg critic or straw-boss philosopher.
But the work was something else again. Whatever nonsense he spouted, Warren was an able draftsman. He had got the hair just right—a fair skein of silk streaming across the canvas. In Miles’s desk drawer, at home, among the keepsakes of his previous marriages—a pair of tiny gloves, a ribboned garter, an old packet of fish-skins—there was a tress of Martha’s hair, now dulled, that had once shone and rippled like the hair in Warren’s picture. And Warren had caught something of Martha’s temperament in the blunt tilt of the nose and the tiny, staring eyehole of the nostril. “Why, it’s the best thing you’ve done,” Miles suddenly decided. The other three looked at him, wonderingly. Miles read Helen’s questioning gaze. “Isn’t it rather dark?” she murmured. She meant academic. There were two opinions in New Leeds on the subject of Warren’s painting—the one that called it too modern and the one that called it academic. Among the summer crowd, Warren’s quest for the fourth dimension was considered rather a joke, a sad joke, because he was a nice man. There was a lot of irony in the position, Miles had often reflected. If Warren had been a carpenter or a plumber, he could have made his marks as a naif painter with a scientific “vision,” but his art-school training rendered him funny ha-ha to the cognoscenti, among whom Miles did not number himself. In the days when the poor devil used to have exhibitions in the rug-and-craft shop on the village green, everybody turned up, out of friendship for the Coes, and quietly snickered into their sleeve at the sign hand-lettered by Warren—“Prices on Request.” He had never sold a canvas in all his years up here, which, Martha used to claim, was a sort of achievement, considering the local taste. He could not even give one away: people protested that they were too big or too dark for a seashore house.
Miles began to pace up and down. His present wife’s attitude annoyed him—she was too conventional in her responses. He stopped by the liquor tray and poured himself a fresh drink. He was thinking of Martha. He had always had a weakness for intelligent women, though he knew them to be bad for him, like drink or certain kinds of food. They disagreed with him, in both senses of the
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