In Bohemia With Du Maurier Part 1

In Bohemia with Du Maurier.

by Felix Moscheles.

PREFACE.

"You'll see that I've used up all your Mesmerism and a trifle more in my new book," said du Maurier to me, some time before he published his "Trilby"; and that remark started us talking of the good old times in Antwerp, and overhauling the numerous drawings and sketches in which he so vividly depicted the incidents of our Bohemian days. It seemed to me that some of those drawings should be published, if only to show how my now so popular friend commenced his artistic career. In order that they should not go forth without explanation, I wrote the following pages.

The Bohemia I have sought to coerce into book shape, is not the wild country, peopled by the delightfully unconventional savages, so often described, but a little cultivated corner of the land, as I found it in Antwerp, a mere background to the incidents I had to relate. Such as it is, it may perhaps serve here and there to point to the original soil from which were eventually to spring some of the figures so familiar to us to-day.

To me it was a source of enjoyment to evoke these memories, and if I publish them, it is because I strongly feel that pleasures shared are pleasures doubled. Sociably inclined as I always was, I am truly glad to have the opportunity of giving a hearty welcome to those who may care to join my friend and myself in our ramblings and our "tumblings."

I.

"TUMBLINGS"

_WITH DU MAURIER AND FRIENDS._

"I well remember" my first meeting with du Maurier in the cla.s.s-rooms of the famous Antwerp Academy.

I was painting and blagueing, as one paints and blagues in the storm and stress period of one's artistic development.

It had been my good fortune to commence my studies in Paris; it was there, in the atelier Gleyre, I had cultivated, I think I may say, very successfully, the essentially French art of chaffing, known by the name of "La blague parisienne," and I now was able to give my less lively Flemish friends and fellow-students the full benefit of my experience. Many pleasant recollections bound me to Paris; so, when I heard one day that a "Nouveau" had arrived, straight from my old atelier Gleyre, I was not a little impatient to make his acquaintance.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE ATELIER GLEYRE.]

The new-comer was du Maurier. I sought him out, and, taking it for granted that he was a Frenchman, I addressed him in French; we were soon engaged in lively conversation, asking and answering questions about the comrades in Paris, and sorting the threads that a.s.sociated us both with the same place. "Did you know 'un nomme Pointer'?" he asked, exquisitely Frenchy-fying the name for my benefit. I mentally translated this into equally exquisite English, my version naturally being: "A man called Poynter."

Later on an American came up, with whom I exchanged a few words in his and my native tongue. "What the D. are you--English?" broke in du Maurier. "And what the D. are you?" I rejoined. I forget whether D.

stood for d.i.c.kens or for the other one; probably it was the latter. At any rate, whether more or less emphatic in our utterances, we then and there made friends on a sound international basis.

It seemed to me that at this our first meeting du Maurier took me in at a glance--the eager, hungry glance of the caricaturist. He seemed struck with my appearance, as well he might be. I wore a workman's blouse that had gradually taken its colour from its surroundings. To protect myself from the indiscretions of my comrades I had painted various warnings on my back, as, for instance, "Bill stickers beware,"

"It is forbidden to shoot rubbish here," and the like. My very black hair, ever inclined to run riot, was encircled by a craftily conceived band of crochet-work, such as only a fond mother's hand could devise, and I was doubtless colouring some meerschaum of eccentric design.

My fellow-student, the now famous Matthew Maris, immortalised that blouse and that piece of crochet-work in the admirable oil-sketch here reproduced.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MY BLOUSE.

(_From an oil-sketch by Matthew Maris._)]

It has always been a source of legitimate pride to me to think that I should have been the tool selected by Providence to sharpen du Maurier's pencil; there must have been something in my "Verfluchte Physiognomie," as a very handsome young German, whom I used to chaff unmercifully, called it, to reveal to du Maurier hidden possibilities and to awaken in him those dormant capacities which had betrayed themselves in the eager glance above named.

This was, I believe, in 1857; not feeling over sure as regards that date, I refer to a bundle of du Maurier's letters before me, but they offer me no a.s.sistance; there is but one dated, and that one merely headed: "Dusseldorf, 19th Cent." Well, in 1857, then, let us take it, the Antwerp Academy was under the direction of De Keyser, that most urbane of men and painters. Van Lerius, well known to many American and English lovers of art, her Majesty included, was professor of the Painting Cla.s.s, and amongst the students there were many who rapidly made themselves a name, as Tadema, M. Maris, Neuhuys, Heyermans, and the armless artist, whose foot-painted copies after the Masters at the Antwerp Gallery are well known to every tourist. The teaching was of a sound, practical nature, strongly imbued with the tendencies of the colourist school. Antwerp ever sought to uphold the traditions of a great Past; in the atelier Gleyre you might have studied form and learnt to fill it with colour, but here you would be taught to manipulate colour, and to limit it by form. A peculiar kind of artistic kicks and cuffs were administered to the student by Van Lerius as he went his rounds. "That is a charming bit of colour you have painted in that forehead," he said to me on one occasion--"so delicate and refined. Do it again," he added, as he took up my palette knife and sc.r.a.ped off the "delicate bit." "Ah, you see, _savez vous_, you can't do it again; you got it by fluke, some stray tints off your palette, _savez vous_," and, taking the biggest brush I had, he swept over that palette and produced enough of the desired tints to have covered a dozen foreheads.

The comrade without arms was a most a.s.siduous worker; it was amusing to watch his mittened feet step out of their shoes and at the shortest notice proceed to do duty as hands; his nimble toes would screw and unscrew the tops of the colour tubes or handle the brush as steadily as the best and deftest of fingers could have done. Very much unlike any of us, he was most punctilious in the care he bestowed on his paint box, as also on his personal appearance. Maris, Neuhuys, Heyermans, and one or two others equally gifted, but whose thread of life was soon to be cut short, were painting splendid studies, some of which I was fortunate enough to rescue from destruction and have happily preserved.

Quite worthy to be placed next to these are Van-der-something's studies. That (or something like that) was the name of a wiry, active little man who in those days painted in a garret; there everything was disarranged chaotically, mostly on the floor, for there was no furniture that I can recollect beyond a stool, an easel, and a fine old looking-gla.s.s. He had a house, though, and a wife, in marked contrast with his appearance and the garret. The house was not badly appointed, and she was lavishly endowed with an exuberance of charms and graces characteristic of a Rubens model.

A fellow-student of mine was their lodger, a handsome young German, brimful of talent, but sadly deficient in health. He had always held most rigid principles on questions of morality, but unfortunately they failed one day in their application, owing to the less settled views entertained by Madame Van-der-something on such subjects. She certainly gave him much affection on the one hand, but on the other she so audaciously appropriated those of his goods and chattels that could be turned into money, that the police had to intervene, and she eventually found herself before a judge and jury. There, however, she managed so well to cast all responsibility on her husband, who, to this day, I believe was quite innocent, that--"cherchez la femme"--she got off, and he was sentenced to a term of imprisonment.

Now if Van Ostade or Teniers had risen to prosecute him for forging their signatures, and he had been found guilty and condemned to severe punishment, it would have served him right. He was a perfect gem of a forger. He picked up a stock of those dirty old pictures painted on worm-eaten panels that used to abound in the sale-rooms of Antwerp.

On these he would paint what might be called replicas with variations, cribbing left and right from old mildewed prints that were scattered all about the floor. He would sc.r.a.pe and sc.u.mble, brighten and deaden with oils and varnishes; he would dodge and manipulate till his picture, after a given time spent in a damp cellar, would emerge as a genuine old master. I once asked a dealer whom I knew to be a regular customer of his, at what price he sold one of those productions. "I really can't say," he answered; "I only do wholesale business. I buy for exportation to England and America." If any of my friends here or over there possess some work of Van-der-something's, I sincerely congratulate them, for the little man was a genius in his way.

Of my friend the German I have only to say that, poor fellow, he spent but a short life of pleasure and of pain. What became of his Circe I never sought to know. It was a clear case of "Ne cherchez pas la femme!"

The first friend I made on my arrival in Antwerp was Jean Heyermans (detto il Pegghi), and a very useful one he proved himself, for he at once took me in hand, helped me to find home and hearth, and generally gave me the correct tip, so valuable to the stranger. He lost no time in teaching me some of those full-flavoured Flemish idioms which from the first enabled me to emphasise my meaning when I wished to express it in unmistakable language.

He himself was a remarkable linguist, speaking English, French, and German fluently, in addition to his native language, Dutch; so he soon chummed with du Maurier and me in several languages, and became one of our set. He was always ready to follow us in our digressions from the conventional course, and we felt that many of our best international jokes would have been lost had it not been for his comprehension and appreciation. His father, too, was a kind friend to us, inviting us to his house to hear Music and talk Art, to ply knives and forks, and to empty gla.s.ses of various dimensions. That gentleman's corpulence had reached a degree which clearly showed that he must have "lost sight of his knees" some years back, but he was none the less strong and active. There were two daughters, one pathetically blind, the other sympathetically musical.

How our friend came by the name of Peggy none of us know, but he figures as such in many of du Maurier's drawings.

"If Peggy," he says, in a letter from Malines, "doesn't come on Sunday, may the vengeance of the G.o.ds overtake him! Tell him so. I'll meet him at the train." And then he sketches the meeting and greeting of the two, and the railway guard starting his train with the old-fashioned horn-signal on the G.E.C. then in use.

My friend Jean soon started on his career as a regular exhibitor in Belgium and Holland, besides which he developed a remarkable taste and talent for teaching.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PEGGY AND DU MAURIER AT THE RAILWAY STATION IN MALINES.]

"What would you advise about Pen's studies?" said Robert Browning one afternoon as we sat in my little studio, talking about his son's talents and prospects. (This was a few years after my final return to England.) "Send him to Antwerp," I said, "to Heyermans; he is the best man I know of to start him."

Pen went, and soon made surprising progress, painting a picture after little more than a twelve-month that at once found an eager purchaser. The poet took great pride in his son's success, and lost no opportunity of speaking in the most grateful and appreciative terms of the teacher. Millais and Tadema endorsed his praise, and Heyermans'

reputation was established. A few years ago he migrated to London, where he continues his work, pluckily upholding the traditions of the Past, whilst readily encouraging the wholesome aspirations of a rising generation.

Another man destined to find a permanent home in England was Alma Tadema. He was not much in the Painting Cla.s.s in my time, but had previously been hard at work there. I mostly saw him in the room adjoining it, and he always seemed to me exclusively interested in the study of costume and history. The incident that led to his leaving the academy rather abruptly is characteristic. An uncle of his having given him a commission for a picture, Tadema applied to de Keyser for authorisation to make the necessary break in his studies. The Director accorded him three weeks, but, as Tadema put it when lately recalling the circ.u.mstance, "I couldn't paint a picture in three weeks then, and I cannot now."

I little thought that from his studies of costume and history, the comrade of my Antwerp days would evolve a long and uninterrupted series of masterpieces, resuscitating the Past and presenting it with the erudition of the Student and the genius of the Artist. Nor did anything foreshadow that my genial Dutch friend, to whom the English language was a dead letter, was destined in a not too distant Future to become a shining light of England's Royal Academy.

Du Maurier was soon installed in the Painting Cla.s.s, and made a vigorous start. Of the things he painted, I particularly recollect a life-size, three-quarter group of an old woman and a boy--a pen-and-ink drawing of which is in my father's alb.u.m--that showed talent enough and to spare, but his artistic aspirations were soon to meet with a serious check. His eyesight suddenly gave him trouble, and before long put a stop to his studies at atelier or academy. He was not to become a painter, as he had fondly hoped, but as we now know, he was to work out his destiny in another direction. With the simplest of means he was to delineate character, and everyday drops of ink, when filtered through his pen, were to emerge in quaint or graceful shapes, wit, satire, and sentiment taking their turns to prompt and guide that pen.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _From du Maurier's painting._]

In those days we called all that caricaturing, and caricature he certainly did; mainly me and himself. From the first he imagined he saw a marked contrast between us. His nose was supposed to be turned up, and mine down, whereas really neither his nor mine much deviated from the ordinary run of noses; my lower lip certainly does project, but his does not particularly recede, and so on. But the imaginary contrast inspired him in the earliest days of our acquaintance, and started him on the warpath of pen-and-inking. He drew us in all conceivable and in some inconceivable situations. "Moscheles and I," he says on one page, "had we not been artists, or had we been artistically beautiful; then again, if we were of the fair s.e.x, or soldiers, or, by way of showing our versatility, if we were horses." In that page he seems to have focussed the essence of our characteristics, whilst appearing only to delineate our human and equine possibilities. Poor F., one of our German friends, fares badly, a donkey's head portraying him "s'il etait cheval."

[Ill.u.s.tration: MOSCHELES ET MOI SI NOUS AVIONS eTe DU BEAU s.e.xE.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: SI NOUS AVIONS eTe BEAUX.]

In consequence of the growing trouble with his eyes, du Maurier left Antwerp for Malines, to place himself under the care of an eminent oculist who resided within easy reach of that city. That blessed blister--"ce sacre vesicatoire," as he calls it, is one of the doctor's remedies.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MOSCHELES ET MOI SI NOUS N'AVIONS PAS eTe ARTISTES.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: SI NOUS AVIONS eTe CHEVAUX.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: F. S'IL ETAIT CHEVAL.]