Manual of Painting and Calligraphy Read Online Free Page A

proportions which confers that solid look which men who are physically as weak as I am cannot help but envy. He moves at his ease, sits in a chair without so much as looking at it and is comfortably seated at once, without any need for further adjustments which betray embarrassment and timidity. One might think he had been born with all his battles won or that he has others to do his fighting for him, invisible warriors who quietly perish without fanfare or speech, preparing the way as if they were simply the bristles of a broom. I do not believe S. is a millionaire by current standards, but he is not short of money. This is something one can tell just from the way in which he lights a cigarette or looks around him. The rich man never sees or notices, he simply looks and lights a cigarette with the air of someone expecting it to arrive already lit. The rich man lights the offended cigarette, that is to say, the rich man is offended as he lights the cigarette because there is no one there to do it for him. I am sure S. would have found it perfectly natural if I had rushed forward or showed signs of doing so. But I do not smoke and I have always kept a sharp eye for a chance to deflate and subvert this affected gesture—from the moment a flame is released from a lighter and then extinguished, the opening and closing of a circular movement, according to circumstances, can be a sign of adulation, of subservience, of complicity, a subtle or crude invitation to go to bed. S. would have liked me to acknowledge the wealth and power I perceive there. Artists, however, traditionally enjoy some privileges which, even when they do not exploit them, or only exploit them as a last resort, maintain a romantic aura of irreverence, which confirms the client in his (provisional) state of subordination and in his individual superiority. In this somewhat farcical relationship, the artist and the client each plays his respective role. Deep down, S. would have despised me if I had attempted to light his cigarette, but worse still, he would have achieved what he wanted had I done so. There were no surprises on either side and everything passed off as expected.
    S. is of medium height, robust, in good physical shape (as far as I can tell) for a man who appears to be in his forties. He has enough gray hairs at the temples to add a touch of distinction, and he would be the perfect model for advertising luxury products associated with country life, such as briar pipes, hunting rifles, Scottish tweeds, powerful cars, holidays in the Alps or in the Camargue. In short, the kind of face most men desire because promoted by the American cinema and associated with a certain type of woman with long hair, but probably not worth keeping (I mean the face, not the woman) for any longer than it takes to photograph; in real life men are more commonplace, sallow, unshaven, have bad breath and often suffer from body odor. Perhaps S.’s face—his eyes, mouth, chin, nose, hair roots and hair, eyebrows, skin tone, wrinkles, expression—perhaps all this is to blame for the untidy mess I have transferred onto the canvas and which is no clearer even in the second portrait. Not that it bears no likeness or that the first portrait is not the faithful image I charitably set out to achieve, not that the second portrait could not pass for an exercise in psychological analysis expressed through painting. In both cases, I alone know that both canvases remain white, virginal, if you prefer that word, ruined, if truth be told. Yet I come back to asking myself why (since the S. I have described is so loathsome) I feel this obsessive need to understand and get to know him better, when much more interesting men and women whom I have portrayed during all these years of mediocre painting have passed through my eyes and hands. I can find no explanation other than being middle-aged, the humiliation of suddenly discovering that I do not match up to expectations and this other and more