Trees arose from golden puddles, half screening a ziarat which,
upon the glowing canvas, appeared remarkably like a village church. "How
beautiful!" I cried, "how gloriously oleographic!" and the painter,
removing a brush from his mouth, smiled, well pleased, and said, "I am a
Leader among Victorian artists and the public adores me!" and I left him
vigorously painting pot-boilers. Then in a damp dell among the willows of
the Dal I found a foreigner in spectacles, and the light upon his pictures
was the light that never was on sea or land; but through a silvery mist
the willows showed ghostly grey, and a shadowy group of classic nymphs
were ringed in the dance, and I cried "O Corot! lend me your spectacles. I
fain, like you, would see crude nature dimmed to a silvery perpetual
twilight." And Corot replied: "Mon ami moi je ne vois jamais le soleil, je
me plonge toujours, dans les ombres bleuatres et les rayons pales de
l'aube."
Then upward I fared till, treading the clear heights, I found one
frantically painting the peaks and pinnacles of the mountains in weird
stipples of alternate red and blue.
"Great heavens!" I exclaimed, "what disordered manner is this!"
The artist glanced swiftly at me, and said disdainfully: "I am a modern of
the moderns, and if you cannot see that mountains are like that, it is
your fault--not mine. Go back, you stand too close."
And as I went back I looked over my shoulder, and, truly, the flaring
rose-colour had blended amicably with the blue, and I admitted that
perhaps Segantini was not so mad as he looked.
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