The Matisse Stories - Antonia S. Byatt [28]
‘That may well be the case. But she makes specific allegations—you went to her studio—’
‘Oh yes. I went. I am not as brutal as I appear. I did try to give her the benefit of the doubt. That part of her account bears some resemblance to the truth—that is, to what I remember of those very disagreeable events. I did say something about the inarticulacy of painters and so on—you can’t have worked in art schools as long as I have without knowing that some can use words and some can only use materials—it’s interesting how you can’t always predict which.
‘Anyway, I went and looked at her so-called Work.
The phraseology is catching. “So-called”. A pantechnicon contemporary term of abuse.’
‘And?’
‘The work is horrible, Dr Himmelblau. It disgusts. It desecrates. Her studio—in which the poor creature also eats and sleeps—is papered with posters of Matisse’s work. La Rive. Le Nu rose. Le Nu bleu. Grande Robe bleue. La Musique. L’Artiste et son modèle. Zorba sur la terrasse. And they have all been smeared and defaced. With what looks like organic matter—blood, Dr Himmelblau, beef stew or faeces—I incline towards the latter since I cannot imagine good daube finding its way into that miserable tenement. Some of the daubings are deliberate reworkings of bodies or faces—changes of outlines—some are like thrown tomatoes—probably are thrown tomatoes—and eggs, yes—and some are great swastikas of shit. It is appalling. It is pathetic.’
‘It is no doubt meant to disgust and desecrate,’ states Dr Himmelblau, neutrally.
‘And what does that matter? How can that excuse it? roars Perry Diss, startling the younger Chinese woman, who is lighting the wax lamps under the plate warmer, so that she jumps back.
‘In recent times,’ says Dr Himmelblau, ‘art has traditionally had an element of protest.’
‘Traditional protest, hmph,’ shouts Perry Diss, his neck reddening. ‘Nobody minds protest, I’ve protested in my time, we all have, you aren’t the real thing if you don’t have a go at being shocking, protest is de rigeur, I know. But what I object to here, is the shoddiness, the laziness. It seems to me—forgive me, Dr Himmelblau—but this—this caca offends something I do hold sacred, a word that would make that little bitch snigger, no doubt, but sacred, yes—it seems to me, that if she could have produced worked copies of those—those masterpieces—those shining—never mind—if she could have done some work—understood the blues, and the pinks, and the whites, and the oranges, yes, and the blacks too—and if she could still have brought herself to feel she must—must savage them—then I would have had to feel some respect.’
‘You have to be careful about the word masterpieces,’ murmurs Dr Himmelblau.
‘Oh, I know all that stuff, I know it well. But you have got to listen to me. It can have taken at the maximum half an hour—and there’s no evidence anywhere in the silly girl’s work that she’s ever spent more than that actually looking at a Matisse—she has no accurate memory of one when we talk, none, she amalgamates them all in her mind into one monstrous female corpse bursting with male aggression—she can’t see, can’t you see? And for half an hour’s shit-spreading we must give her a degree?’
‘Matisse,’ says Gerda Himmelblau, ‘would sometimes make a mark, and consider, and put the canvas away for weeks or months until he knew where to put the next mark.’
‘I know.’
‘Well—the—the shit-spreading may have required the same consideration. As to location of daubs.’
‘Don’t be silly. I can see paintings, you know. I did look to see if there was any wit in where all this detritus was applied. Any visual wit, you know, I know it’s meant to be funny. There wasn’t. It was just slapped on. It