Connecticut western news., 1894-03-29
THAT PICTURE.


 worked at that famous painting which he affirmed should represent the cross ing of the Red sea, and for five or six years this masterpiece of color had been obstinately refused by the jury at the annual salon.
 So, from force of habit in going and coming so often from the studio to the musee and from the musee to the studio, the picture knew the road so we'll that, if one had set it on wheels, it would have been able to go all alone to the Louvre.
 Marcel, who had ten times repainted and rearranged this canvas from top to bottom, attributed to personal hostil- ity of the members of the jury against himself the ostracism which rejected it annually from the Square salon, and in his idle moments he had com posed in honor of the Cerberuses of the institute a little dictionary of curses with some illustrations of a savage fe- rocity. This collection, which had be- come celebrated, had obtained in the studios and at the School of the Fine Arts the popular success which is at- tached to the immortal complaint of Jean Belin, painter in ordinary to the grand sultan of Turkey. All the daub- CTS of Paris had a copy of it in their memory.
 For long time Marcel was not dis couraged by the determined rejections which he received at each annual ex- hibition. He was comfortably settled in the opinion that his picture was, in its least proportions, the long sought for pendant to the Marriage Feast at Cana" that gigantic masterpiece whose brilliant splendor the dust of three cen- turies has not been able to tarnish. So, every year at the epoch of the salon, Marcel sent his picture to be examined by the jury. Only--in order to throw the examiners off the sc snt and to try to baffls them in their preconceived de- termination to exclude it, which preju- dice they seemed to have against the Crossing of the Red Sea"-without changing anything in the general com position of the painting, he modified certain details and changed the title of his picture. Thus, one year it came before the jury under the name of "The Crossing of the Rubicon.'' But Pha- raoh, badly disguised under Casar's mantle, was instantly recognized and re- jected with all the honors due him.
 The following year Marcel threw upon the foreground of his canvas lay CT of white paint to represent snow, planted tree in one corner, and dress ing up an Egyptian in the uniform of the imperial guard of France he bap- tized his picture "The Crossing of the Beresina. The jury, which had rub bed up it's spectacles that day upon the tails of its green palmed coats-on official occasions the members of the institute wear dress coats having green palms embroidered on the lapels and collars-was not duped by this new ruse. It recognized perfectly the obsti- nate canvas, especially by big devil of a many colored horse that pranced about on top of wave of the Red sea. The dressing of this horse served Mar eel for all his experiments in coloring, and in his everyday speech he called it "a synoptical tableau of fine tones," be- cause it reproduced all the most varled com mbinations of color with thelr plays of light and shade. But once more, { unmoved by this fine detail, the jury had not black balls enough to fully ex- press their feelings in rejecting 'The Crossing of the Beresina."
 Very we'll. " said Marcel, "I'll waitl Next year I shall send 1t again under the title of the Passage des Panora- mas.
 A few days later, and when Macrel had already forgotten terrible threats of vengeance he had uttered against his prosecutors, he received a visit from Father Medicis. Thus the bohemians had nicknamed a Jew named Solomon, who at that epoch was well known to all memb bers of artistic and literary Bo- hemia, with whom he was in perpetual relations. Pere Medicis did business in all sorts of bric- a-brac. He sold com plete sets of furniture at from 12 francs up to 5000. He bought everything and knew how to sell it again at profit. The exchange bank of M. Proudhor was very little affair compared to the system applied by Medicis, who pos. sessed the genius of traffic to degree | never before attained by even the most | able of his fellow believers. His shop, which was situated in the Place du Carrousel, was fairyland where one found everything to be desired. Al the products of nature, all the creations | of art, all that comes forth from the
 bowels of the earth and of genius, Med
 icis made of it an object of negotiation
 His business touched everything, ab
 solutely everything that exists; ht
 dealt even in the ideal. Medicis bough'
 ideas in order to exploit them himsel
 or to sell them again. Known to al
 the litterateurs and all the artists. al
 intimate of the palette and atfamilial
 friend of the writing desk, he was tn
 Asmodeus of the art. He would sel you some cigars for the plot of novel
 some slippers for a sonnet, some fresl
 fish for paradoxes; he chatted by tn
 hour" with writers whose business
 was to relate in the newspapers tn
 scandal of society; he would procur
 you places in the galleries of the hous
 of parliament and invitations to privat
 soirees; he lodged by the night, tn
 week or the month the wandering daub
 CTS who paid him in copies of the work
 ot Flayius Josephus.
 l On entering the home of the bohe
 mians. with that intelligent air whicl I distinguished him, the Jew divine
 that he had arrived at a propitious mo
 trent. In fact, the four friends foun
 themselves at that moment met in cour
 ell and under the presidency of fert cious appetite they were discussing tf
 grave question of bread and meat.
 was on Sunday, and the end of tf , month! Fatal day and sinister dat ! The entrance of Medicis was therefor : greeted with joyous chorus, for the knew that the Jew was too miserly (