Luncheon of the Boating Party (49 page)

“Following his list?” Gustave asked.

“Yes.”

That landed like a cannonball in his gut. He couldn’t believe it had

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come to this. A troupe of toadies sucking away their most enthusiastic dealer.

Gustave leaned forward, squeezing both arms of the chair. “Tell us honestly. What do you think about their work, these disciples of Degas?”

“Not scintillating.”

“Then why support them?” His voice rose to an embarrassing

squeak.

“Call it self-interest. Degas will sell.”

“And his tag-alongs? Do you really think they’ll sell?”

“They offer a combination of some Impressionist characteristics with sharp realism and anecdotal subjects. To some, it will appeal.”

“It will dilute pure Impressionism,” Gustave said.

“Is that so important? So does your work, at times. But Monet will hold up that end.”

“No, he won’t,” Gustave retorted. “He’s given up the group shows.

He told an interviewer that the little band became a banal sprawl when it opened its doors to first-time daubers. Do you want to be seen as representing them? That does us no favors. Being
hung
alongside them doesn’t either.” He felt feverish, and Auguste had been cool as a clam.

“Say something, Auguste.”

“Cézanne thinks that hanging our work with theirs will halve our prices,” Auguste ventured.

“Do you?” Durand-Ruel asked.

“I hold with Cézanne. I’m out of it.” Auguste lifted his hand. “I took a big step forward as a result of showing at the Salon. It’s a matter of not losing what I’ve gained.”

“Understood,” said Durand-Ruel.

Auguste went right on. “There are scarcely fifteen collectors in Paris who appreciate a painter who isn’t in the Salon. There are eighty thousand who won’t buy even a nose if the painter
hasn’t
shown in the Salon.

I’ve got to live. That’s why I send two every year.”

“Two a year aren’t enough to live on.”

“That’s why we need a show,” Gustave said. “I’ll give my all to mount and fund it, only if the participants are selected on the basis of

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proven artistic merit
in line with our original goals.
If Degas wants to take part, I say let him, but without the crowd he drags along.”

“He won’t agree to that.”

“No, I daresay he won’t.”

“You have to face it, Gustave. There’s every sign that Zola was right in saying that a cohesive Impressionist group no longer exists.”

He felt a twinge in his chest, and wondered if Auguste did too.

“Then a tragedy has happened right under our noses.”

“No tragedy,” Durand-Ruel said. “The time will come when you

won’t need the group. Your styles are diverging anyway. You won’t need the Salon either.”

Auguste guffawed, but Durand-Ruel ignored it.

“There’s a better way. For Monet and Pissarro and Sisley too.”

“Which is?” Auguste prompted.

“First, listen to my reasoning. Your boldest work hasn’t been shown at the Impressionist shows, and can’t be shown at the Salon, so the most innovative work being done in France is either sold among yourselves or to a few friendly buyers or not sold at all, and that does nothing for the ultimate acceptance of the new art.”

“Are you saying I’m wrong to buy up the choice pieces?” Gustave asked.

“No. I’m just saying that the time for independent group exhibitions
and
Salon validation is over. The manner of exchange of art is in the throes of a huge change. As important as the change from aristocratic patronage to the bourgeois Salon.” Durand-Ruel laid his palms on his desk, fingers splayed. “And we’re in the middle of it.

“In this change the dealer is essential. Not just as a
marchand de tab-leaux
as if paintings were shoes or hardware. As I see it, the dealer is a guide to aesthetic taste for the uninformed, a mentor to artists, a banker if need be, an uncle in affection, a publicist, and somewhat of an impresario.”

“That’s a hefty handful,” Auguste said, crossing his legs. “Especially when you haven’t bought anything to speak of recently.”

“You don’t know how I’ve suffered in not being able to. But the na-

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tion is finally crawling out of recession, and more and more people are coming in ready to buy. I must have stock—1881 will be a year of acqui-sition for me.”

“Then what are you waiting for?” Auguste asked.

“Here’s how I see it. If I consider your current work salable, and I have no reason to doubt otherwise, I will soon be prepared to enter into a relationship, not picking and choosing individual paintings, but buying all a painter’s output, as I did with Manet years ago when I could afford to.”

“How soon?” Auguste asked.

Durand-Ruel raised an index fi nger as though asking for patience.

“I have a new friend, a new player in art circles named Feder who has made a good amount of money available to me, so I immediately bought Sisley, whom I thought needed it the most.”

“That’s good,” Gustave said.

“Each year the authority of the Salon is undermined more and more, thanks to the general dissatisfaction with government institutions exposed by the war and the Commune. It’s not in the Salon, it’s in the marketplace that your names will be writ in gold. The franc spent at a dealer’s gallery will be the arbiter of taste.”

Gustave felt queasy in the stuffy room and needed a glass of water.

“What my father did for Delacroix, I can do for you. Under this arrangement . . .”

Durand-Ruel stopped abruptly and poured another round of co-

gnac, as if to dramatize what he was about to say. Oh, he was a master showman, all right.

“You’ll have to commit all of your works to me.”

Durand-Ruel leaned on his desk toward Auguste and poked at the

air in his direction with a silver pen. “Case in point. You did an oval portrait of Marie Murer, and her brother only paid you a hundred francs. That’s shameful. Vastly less than what I could have gotten if you would have gone through me.”

“But she promised to put it in a Louis XV frame from Grosvalet’s.”

Durand-Ruel rolled his eyes. He was right to. It was a ridiculous reason, but so like Auguste.

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“Irrelevant. With proper management, which you obviously don’t

know a thing about, Auguste, your paintings will become prime investments. But it won’t work without total commitment.”

“Would we have the right to accept commissions for portraits and room decorations?” Auguste asked.

“Yes.”

“What if I want to keep something? Or give it away?” Auguste

asked.

“Let’s say, five a year, but without the right to sell them.”

“And the Salon?” Auguste asked.

“The Salon’s a dying institution. Your group gave it its
coup de
grâce.
”

“That doesn’t answer his question,” Gustave said.

“You can continue to submit two, as you’ve been doing. And I can exhibit yours that I buy wherever I see opportunity. Don’t you see?

That means all over France, and Belgium too. I’ve got contacts in England, and I’m working toward getting the financial backing and infl uence of Mary Cassatt to hold an exhibition in New York someday.”

“Some year, you mean,” Auguste said.

“Granted, it will take time. I have a feeling the American public won’t laugh. They’ll buy, moderately at first, but it will grow. And here’s another idea—single-artist exhibitions. The day will come when they’ll throng to my gallery to see a whole show of you, another of Monet, another of Pissarro. Can’t you see that?”

“No, frankly, I can’t,” Auguste said.

“Can’t you see now that all this squabbling over poster design of a single exhibition is ridiculous and small?”

Now Durand-Ruel was looking at him, not at Auguste, and he did

feel small. His aims were small, and Auguste’s were big. Durand-Ruel’s were even bigger.

“It will be out of your hands. Let Degas have his exhibition. You come to me,” Durand-Ruel said. “Or I’ll come to you, to your studios.”

Gustave saw it clearly now. The die was cast against his idea of a purist exhibition. He felt some vital energy drain out of him. He lost

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track of what they were saying in the happy memory of Auguste working with him on the 1877 exhibition—doing the publicity, writing the invitations, discussing each painting, designing an arrangement on the walls, working through the night and being surprised at the dawn of a new day. How happy he had been to provide the funds for the expenses, to feel part of something important.

He was going to lose this, the very thing that had given his life meaning for the last half dozen years.

“At the Maison Fournaise? A dozen figures?” he heard Durand-

Ruel say. “When can I see it?”

“When it’s fi nished.”

“Not even the moment before the last brushstroke?” Durand-Ruel

cajoled. That was his way of operating, jollying people into selling and buying so everyone came away feeling they’d made a good deal. Durand-Ruel was an expert at it.

“Soon.”

“And my arrangement?” Durand-Ruel asked.

Gustave let Auguste answer. He suddenly didn’t care whether his own paintings sold or not.

“I’ve never been able to know the day before what I’ll do the next day,” Auguste said.

A good response, under the circumstances. They got out of there into the fresh air of the street.

They stopped at Gustave’s apartment to get Mame and walked toward the Jardin des Tuileries. He could tell by Auguste’s far-off look that he was going over Durand-Ruel’s proposal, but the breakup of the group was what churned in his own mind. The sight of Durand-Ruel saying no to his proposal and yes to Degas’, without blinking, without an apology, cold as the eye of an enemy soldier, flashed in his mind. What a dour pair they were, Auguste and himself. Who would lay out his feelings fi rst?

“He’s a hybrid,” Gustave said. “Aesthete, businessman, politician.”

At the garden café in the Tuileries they ordered
glorias,
sugared
cafés

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with brandy, and an assortment of pastries. He stroked Mame’s back until she settled beside him.

Auguste said, “I knew at the time I was being rooked when Murer bought that portrait of his sister, but my rent was due.”

A heavy silence settled on them. Their pastries were served, but Gustave couldn’t eat. Auguste started with a mocha buttercream square.

Eating seemed to hearten him and he spoke to the point fi rst.

“What bothers me is that giving an exclusive leads to speculation.”

“It might benefit you in the long run,” Gustave said.

“He wants a monopoly and that opens the way to lower prices. He cornered the market on the Barbizon painters. He owned their souls, in fact.”

Gustave sipped his
gloria.
“A gentleman’s way to snatch the best of a painter and expect lifelong gratitude.”

Auguste rubbed the side of his nose. “With that power, he could force collectors of taste with moderate resources out of the market and sell only to rich clients who know nothing about art.”

“Men who buy pictures like shares of stock,” Gustave added.

“I despise the idea that paintings are investments,” Auguste said.

“Why not hang a Suez Canal stock certificate on the wall? A onepage slice of world shipping, bound to go up in value, and it lends prestige in the meantime. Especially if it’s framed in that Louis XV frame you coveted.”

“What’s a painting by comparison? You can’t funnel ships

through it.”

Gustave smacked the table. “I’ve got it! We’ll go there and paint it.

We could make a deal that for every ten thousand shares the investor would get a genuine Renoir of the canal if they preferred loose strokes that Zola would criticize, a Caillebotte if they liked a tighter image, that Zola would criticize.”

They laughed at the ridiculousness of it.

Auguste took a bite of rose-shaped chocolate
duja,
and then another.

“Mm, try these.”

“I visited George Petit’s gallery.” Gustave paused, not wanting to destroy Auguste’s moment of pleasure, but he thought he’d better tell him.

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“Well? Out with it.”

“I heard him say to a gentleman that Durand-Ruel is constantly on the verge of ruin, that he only gives the impression that he’s rich.”

“Then we shouldn’t put all of our hens in his sack. Think where we’d be if there were paintings from the group hanging in every progressive gallery in Paris. Our movement can’t be made to seem only a whim of Durand-Ruel.”

Auguste wiped his mouth with his napkin, took a bite, and continued. “What’s to prevent him from leaving our paintings to his children if he wants to? Or what if he has more financial setbacks, and Petit or other dealers don’t, and we’ve sold our souls to Durand-Ruel? We’ll be ruined.”

“And what’s to attract the public to a one-man gallery show compared to a large exhibition of all of us that would get press attention?”

Gustave asked. “What if he sends all our work to America? What good would that do us in Paris?”

“What if what if what if.” Auguste finished the pastries and his
gloria.

“Degas won’t organize under my terms. I won’t under his. Point-

blank, tell me. If I tried to mount an Impressionist show without Degas, would you exhibit?”

Auguste rolled a cigarette, lit it, and took a couple of puffs.

“Come on. Don’t keep me waiting.”

“Point-blank. No.” Auguste stubbed out the cigarette. “I don’t even know whether I’m an Impressionist anymore.”