In this
light, Mrs. Mellish's flushed harangue seemed not unfitted to the
trivialities of the tea hour, and some one almost at once carried on the
argument by saying:--"But according to your theory--that the significance
of his work depends on the significance of the sitter--his portrait of
Vard ought to be a master-piece; and it's his biggest failure."
Alonzo Vard's suicide--he killed himself, strangely enough, the day that
Lillo's pictures were first shown--had made his portrait the chief feature
of the exhibition. It had been painted ten or twelve years earlier, when
the terrible "Boss" was at the height of his power; and if ever man
presented a type to stimulate such insight as Lillo's, that man was Vard;
yet the portrait was a failure. It was magnificently composed; the
technique was dazzling; but the face had been--well, expurgated. It was
Vard as Cumberton might have painted him--a common man trying to look at
ease in a good coat. The picture had never before been exhibited, and
there was a general outcry of disappointment. It wasn't only the critics
and the artists who grumbled. Even the big public, which had gaped and
shuddered at Vard, revelling in his genial villany, and enjoying in his
death that succumbing to divine wrath which, as a spectacle, is next best
to its successful defiance--even the public felt itself defrauded. What
had the painter done with their hero? Where was the big sneering
domineering face that figured so convincingly in political cartoons and
patent-medicine advertisements, on cigar-boxes and electioneering posters?
They had admired the man for looking his part so boldly; for showing the
undisguised blackguard in every line of his coarse body and cruel face;
the pseudo-gentleman of Lillo's picture was a poor thing compared to the
real Vard.
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