Tuesday, 19 July 2011
The most earnest Mr Neill.
Historian Inge Clendinnen critiques historical fiction, questioning how we can ever hope to step into the shoes of a person who has lived a hundred or more years prior to us. And yet this act of imagining has been going on regardless, and for quite some time now. Arguably not quite the same thing, when Australia was still a very young settlement Britain was busy imagining the colonies and the colonies were busy imagining each other – the Hobart Town Courier and many other colonial papers featured stories about the new settlement at King George’s Sound. In the same way I can't help imagining both Neill and William Buelow Gould.
Neill is very pious and upright. He works hard and is a stickler for the rules, an Empire man through and through. In the colonies there is room for men in his position to 'fiddle the books' so to speak, but the most earnest Mr Neill has never been tempted. He will get on in the world by hard work and integrity, and God alone will judge him in the end.
In contrast Gould is a man who has no illusions about the world and how it works. He peddles his talents for whatever advantages might come his way, takes his drink when he can get it and trusts the integrity of no-one. He sees through the posturings and ambitions of the types he paints portraits of, and does it anyway because he knows there is no justice in this world; it's every man for himself, and the immortality and prestige the wealthy look for in his work is a weak attempt to stave off the inevitable. I imagine a meeting between them, two representatives of an Empire at the height of its power.
The Meeting
The two men are in a rough room that has been made home-some by the addition of drape curtains, a woven rug on the floor, various portraits and books; heavy brown bound tomes.
A large wooden writing desk dominates the room. Seated at it facing the window and the light it affords is a smallish, rough-clad man. His brown hair is greasy-short, grey-streaked at the temples where it runs into two-day stubble. The face is lined and shadowed, blue smudges under the eyes bloodshot and hazed green-blue. The linen of his shirt is well worn, his neck-tie of indeterminate colour and none too clean, breeches worn, boots rough shod and heavy. Here is a man who knows no luck. Above him the sweetish smell of liquor, this his days ration, should have been savoured but knocked back instead in quick swallows.
The slight, uniformed man standing behind and to the left so as to afford a view over the shoulder of the other can smell his odour, but it is the rum he disapproves of. Pinched face he stands with hands clasped behind. He is uniformed, but not here in an official capacity. He has come to see the other paint, fish scales heads tails pectoral fins, difficult to place on the paper before the colours fade to grey and the eye glazes over.
The fish lies before him without grace. It is dead and grey. Fish smell with each breath. Aware too of the other one’s breath behind. He is used to them watching him paint. This one serious and disapproving and dutiful to the last word. Mister Neill, Sir, fancies himself a bit of an artist no doubt. Today he is focusing on the shape and size, next time he has a live fish he will add the colour, layering and glazing to imitate the shimmer of scale. The room narrows to his brush, the paper, the fish. Forgotten, the presence behind.
The standing man watches as a fish appears on the paper. Form, substance, he knows he is not that good, but perhaps in his own way, given the luxury of time he might come to his own style. He wants to say something but is not sure how to begin.
Do you know of Fallours, Man?
The artist is startled.
Sir?
Fallours. He painted fish. Do you know of him?
No Sir. I've not 'eard of 'im.
He painted fish, but badly. He exploited people's ignorance. It is important to only paint the truth of a thing, as you do. That is true Science. It may not always be easy, but it is important.
Gould knows nothing of Science, but he understands how to render a true likeness, and what is more it is one of the few things he prides himself on. Besides, he has learned to be agreeable.
Aye, Sir.
Neill is not satisfied, feels the man has probably missed his point entirely, though he knows he paints a better likeness than he will ever be able to. Still, if ever he finds the time or opportunity he would strive to render only what was there, noting carefully distinguishing features, size....
Carry on, Man.
The artist is still watching him expectantly, politely.
Sir.
He returns to his brush and the paper.
The watching one stays until a fish is lying there on the paper. Standing motionless throughout his mind is busy with ideas and possibilities.
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