description: They have been renovating my father's large workroom. Thatdelightful, tumble-down old place has lost its moss-grown tiles andthe green weather-stains we have known all our lives on the highwhitewashed wall, opposite which we sit, in the little sculptor'syard, for the coolness, in summertime. Among old Watteau's work-people came his son, "the genius," my father's godson and namesake, adark-haired youth, whose large, unquiet eyes seemed perpetuallywandering to the various drawings which lie exposed here. My fatherwill have it that he is a genius indeed, and a painter born. We havehad our September Fair in the Grande Place, a wonderful stir of soundand colour in the wide, open space beneath our windows. And justwhere the crowd was busiest young Antony was found, hoisted into oneof those empty niches of the old Hôtel de Ville, sketching the sceneto the life, but with a [6] kind of grace--a marvellous tact ofomission, as my father pointed out to us, in dealing with the vulgarreality seen from one's own window--which has made trite oldHarlequin, Clown, and Columbine, seem like people in some fairyland;or like infinitely clever tragic actors, who, for the humour of thething, have put on motley for once, and are able to throw a world ofserious innuendo into their burlesque looks, with a sort of comedywhich shall be but tragedy seen from the other side. He brought hissketch to our house to-day, and I was present when my fatherquestioned him and commended his work. But the lad seemed notgreatly pleased, and left untasted the glass of old Malaga which wasoffered to him. His father will hear nothing of educating him as apainter. Yet he is not ill-to-do, and has lately built himself a newstone house, big and grey and cold. Their old plastered house withthe black timbers, in the Rue des Cardinaux, was prettier; datingfrom the time of the Spaniards, and one of the oldest inValenciennes.
language: English
title: Imaginary Portraits: With the Child in the House and Gaston de LaTour
titlecomplete: Imaginary Portraits: With the Child in the House and Gaston de LaTour
genres: Fiction, Short Stories, British Literature, Literature, Classics, 19th Century, Art, Victorian
ratings_count: 49
publisher: DIANE Publishing Company