A PAINTER GENIUS.

Taranaki Daily News, 1 November 1917, Page 7

A PAINTER GENIUS.

WHO WOULD NOT SELL lIIS WORK. • IIE DIED IN OBSCURITY IN LONDON, AND YET HIS PICTURES SELL FOR THOUSANDS IN THE Hat/IH ROOMS—A STUDY IN THE PERVERSITY OF GENIUS. London, August 31. Mr. Bernard B. Falk tells a. wonderful story of the personality of that great artist, Matthew Maris, who died in obscurity in London last week. "The wholly unsatisfactory and tantalising career of Matthew'Maris, the ; last and greatest of the three brothers ' to enrich modern Dutch art, is a tempting study in the perversity of genius," he / ! writes in the Weekly (Dispatch. THE SEALED-OP ROOM. "The old man spoke English fluently, although he used to say that he had never learnt it. "Now that he is gone I realise more than ever what an extraordinary being he was, who all his life was in revolt against the petty vanities of life, and in his later years, and wihen famous, was anxious only to be left alone in his studio, where his imagination took wing, alas! with what result we may never : i .fully know. i "They have sealed his room, and presently they will examine his effects. He has left a will, nnd among the relies is the picture which he despaired of finishing. It. is the painting of the two babies, —daughters of an Ascot patron of the artist—now grown up and married, as Marts himself, not without sardonic satisfaction, told mo. Into thig painting the old man for more than twenty years threw his whole soul. He strove to imprison in the pigments he formerly wielded with such a deft hand some sense of color, some form of effect, that were unattainable. He spoilt rather than improved, for in the quality of his art he paid tribute to the years. The painting, even though it has'lost by the constant retouching, i s described as a remarkable achievement; » WHEN THE DOOR OPENS. "Probably in that sealed room there are other pictures by Maria on which no alien eye has gazed. Has the master in the quest of the supreme secret spoilt them ? I know that lie painted one day and rubbed out the next, never satisfied, his will-o'-the-wisp imagination leading himself and his brush a, wild dance. "My hope i 3 that when he closed the door on his studio for the last time it was not the day for blotting out. For this man was one of the great artists of our age, with radiant thoughts which he hid behind a. cloud of angry memories, and we should mourn the destruction of the framework that expresses these, thoughts and perpetuates them for a world that in the long run is not unappreciative of its best sons. Alas, great as Maris is in his known achievements, how much greater would he have been had no inward resentment led him in the last phase to deny the world , his splendid gifts < "But those who have long since abandoned the unprofitable task of accounting for the eccentricities of rare imagina-. tions will leave the pathologist, whose business is with causes and effects, to sit in judgment upon my friend, despite himself and to his special annoyance, did become of the choice company of the world's elect. They will be content to know the manner of th<, man. hit way of thought, and something of the play of those early forces which colored his life and accentuated an inherent morbid distaste for any form of recognition. • "Matthew Maris was one of the most delightful painters of our days. He charmed so shrewd a connoisseur as the late Mr. Justice Day, whose stern 1 temper relaxed in the presence of the work of this man's hand and brain which gave dignity and poetry to his walls. "In his later years Maris had within his gift the power to command his own price for a painting, but he refused to paint to order or to cater at all for the art market. 'What I paint is mv own concern,' he used to say when I remonstrated with him on his folly. 'My pictures are the unfinished expression of my thoughts; they belong to me, being part of my soul, and I alone understand' them and feel how inadequate, they are to express that which is in me to express.' Besides, my dear fri»id, a painting is never finished. There is always something wanting, and the painter ever seeks to grasp that elusive tiling.' . HIS MODEST HOME. "The master lived ou' tiie upper floor of a .house in a West London square let out in flats. ; I am aa near the sun as I may wish was his excuse for surroundings that were so different from the world of his dreams. Hard by the dim Harrow Road roared with a thousand unmusical voices; below in the gutter children raced and tugged and screamed at the rough games of the street; opposite, a leafty tree that seemed curi-, ouslv out of place waved him a mournful greeting. "Through his window he saw a landscape of unwashed stucco or grimy brick, interminable chimneys and telegraph wires, but through the window of his soul he saw sunlit Watteau landscapes oyer which gorgeous tropical butterflies flitted and he was content.

"He was an unsociable, impractical being. A worn copper plate with his name engraved upon it told the visitor which bell to ring, and I had always a suspicion that Maris, resented this link with utility and was glad to sea time slowly effacing the hieroglyphics. A pleasant middle-aged woman acted as his housekeeper. Dressed in black and soft-voiced .she toned down any sense of intrusion. In the course of eleven years' honest service she never went once into his studio, from which, Schopenhauerlike, he would have promptly expelled any female showing herself with brush and pan. A DICKENS CHARACTER. "Imagine this room which his friends had appointed for him, the master being above such common-place necessity, and a little bent old man with keen blue eyes, artistically shaped face, mther sharp features, chiselled chin, with short, pointed white heardi good complexion, broad forehead mounted with white hair leaving the brow and you have a glimpse of the artißt and his.'domestic environment. . ■ " "He approaches you from a side door hidden by hangings, smoking a long pipe. You notice at once that his boots are very dusty anil have obviously never been cleaned for months. . Tie, usually the most unkempt of men, is for once neatly dressed in a sort of attenuated froekcoat, a white scarf round his neck. His general appearance is impressive and picturesque, and yon catch yourself murmuring, 'A Dickens character.''

"You suggest.that lie should sib down. Ho refuses, saying that he never aits, hut 'ho is weaker than his will or his whim, and clutches the table or sideboard for support. Then ho begins to speak, a Dutch Carlylc full of vehement indignation at the injustices and tyrannies and hypocrisies of tho world. "WHEN HUNGER HELD ME." "'When /I was younger and hunger held me by the throat and made me submissive, people came to me and said; "'Matthew Maris, we like you. l'aint lis a picture not merely for the money that we shall pay you, but. for acquaintance sake.' J was foolish; I consented. Then the next thing I heard was that they had sold the picture at a large profit; so much for what they thought of Matthew Maris. He was merely a commercial asset to them. "To one person that I had a little affection for I gave a little sketch as souvenir; afterwards I saw it advertised for sale—price £4OO. A souvenir, mind you. I do not think it was Sold for this price) it was worth nothing excepting what it represented to the recipient, How dare he sell something which I had given him to keep! What vulgarity to attempt to make money out of a souvenir! What dishonesty, too, to put a price of £4OO on a thing so worthless! "You ate young; you do not know the world. They come to me now, dealers and others, and they say, 'Matthew Maris, you are an obstinate, ailly old man-; you can make £IOO a day, £IOOO a day, if you will, but you sit there spoiling the work that you have long since completed, and you make ua ve\' angry.' "And what do I tell them? I look into their faces and I say. 'Begoife. 1 do not believe in trickery and sham if you do."