Chapter 44 Forty-four

What one thinks of the art of painting by other masters is a matter of considerable importance; and it is natural for me to set down here Strickland's opinion of some of the great artists of the past.I am afraid that there are not many things worth writing about.Strickland is not good at speech, he can't say what he wants to say in brilliant words, so as to leave a deep impression on the listeners.He's not funny.If I managed to record some of his utterances more or less, I can discern some sense of humor in him, which also manifests itself mainly in cynicism.He was very rough in his rebuttals, and sometimes made you laugh because of his frankness; but the only reason they were funny was because he didn't say much.If that's what he said from the start, people wouldn't find it funny at all.

I should say that Strickland was not a man of superior intellect, nor was there anything original in his views on painting.I never heard him talk about those painters whose painting style is similar to his, such as Cézanne, Van Gogh, etc.; I doubt whether he has seen the works of these painters.He didn't seem to be very interested in the Impressionists, whose technique impressed him to some extent, but I suspect that he thought their attitude toward art banal.At one point when Stroeve was scrutinizing the excellence of Monet's art, Strickland interjected: "I prefer Winterhalter." Lov; if he really meant it, he succeeded.

I'm disappointed not to be able to write about his fallacies in his comments about some of the old school painters.Since he is so eccentric in character, my image would be more perfect if he had some eccentric remarks in his criticism of paintings.I feel that I need very much to ask him to make some wild theories about some of the painters of the past, but I have to tell the truth that he, like most people, has a lot of praise for them, which disappoints me very much.I don't think he has any idea who El Greco is.He had a great deal of admiration for Velazquez, albeit with a certain distaste.He liked Chardin, and Rembrandt fascinated him.He told me of his impressions of Rembrandt's pictures in such crude language that I cannot quote them here.No one would have guessed that one of his favorite painters was actually Brueghel the Elder.I didn't know Brueghel the elder well then, and Strickland was incapable of expressing himself.I remember his remark about Brueghel because it was such a poor word.

"He paints well," said Strickland, "and I dare say he finds it a pain to paint." Later, when I saw some of Pieter Brueghel's pictures in Vienna, I think I understood why the painter had attracted Strickland's attention.Here is another painter with his own unique vision of the world.I took a lot of notes at that time, planning to write a book on Bruegel in the future, but these materials were later lost, and all that remained was an emotional memory.In Bruegel's eyes, the image of people seems grotesque, and he was very angry at the grotesque appearance of people; life is just a chaos, full of all kinds of ridiculous and dirty things, which can only give people Provides the joke, but when he laughs he can't help but be filled with sadness.Perhaps Strickland's sympathy for Brueghel was due to his dim awareness of the fact that he was trying to express by one means a feeling suited only to another. a little.Perhaps both men were trying to express in painting ideas better suited to expression in literature.

Strickland was about forty-seven at this time.