‘How many with great abilities, and fine genius in design, have fought for the attainment of knowing the Mechanic of Colours, yet have ever been in the dark, ’tis much to be regretted that an early help has not been at hand, that the utmost time might be given to the more material and scientific studies, as the longest life is too short for the acquisition of perfection in all.’
William Williams,
An Essay on the Mechanic of Oil Colours, 1787
Does the air seem different to a man who, once condemned, has now been acquitted of his crimes? Certainly, thought Benjamin West, it felt easier to breathe these days.
He recalls once more the moment when the letter arrived at his house. He had quickly recognised it to be in Thomas Provis’s hand, and had recoiled when it was handed to him.
He did not read it for a couple of hours. When he eventually opened the letter, he could feel his mouth was dry, and he cursed to himself. Then his eyes fell on a sentence that contained the phrase ‘a great misunderstanding’. He skimmed the letter further, and saw the word, ‘generosity’. Trembling, he went back to the top of the letter to read it properly. ‘We had never meant such enmity to spring up between us,’ it declared. ‘We wish to convey our joy at the discovery that it was all a great misunderstanding. That you chose to make this clear to Mr Cosway is yet another example of the generosity that we had observed in your behaviour from our first meeting. We are profoundly happy at this resolution of the situation.’
West remembered once in Pennsylvania being caught up in a storm on a lake. The sky had seemed entirely clear when he had set out in his boat. But within ten minutes of the first warning breeze, the waters were agitated, the clouds loomed like black rocks, and lightning was spearing the water. He had felt lucky to reach the shore alive. It had been the same when he heard from Cosway that the Provises were accusing him of concealing their secret from the Academy. Up till that point he had persuaded himself that his conduct had been essentially honest, and that in time he would acknowledge the Provises. But once the scandal had struck, even he was forced to confront the reality that his refusal to inform Ann Jemima the moment he decided the method was authentic was, from whatever angle you considered it, reprehensible.
‘I would not have been worthy of my position as President if I had raised the other artists’ hopes about the secret without performing a full range of experiments,’ he found himself saying to Cosway. In that moment he almost believed it. ‘The method is not perfect on its own.’ How he hated the man. Like so many men who were fundamentally weak, Cosway revelled in pretending he was doing his superior a service at the same time as he clearly enjoyed his discomfort.
The portraitist spared no detail in telling West of the outrage of the other Academy artists. He looked coolly at West every time he repeated the accusation that he intended to keep the secret to himself purely to gain an advantage for the Royal Academy Exhibition. How West damned the Provises’ argument at the same time as he was angrily forced to concede its ingenuity. No one, he kept repeating to himself, no one who had not seen the secret could realise how much work he had to do on his own in order to make it effective. Did I simply desire an advantage over the other artists, he was on occasion forced to ask himself? I was caught up in my obsession – what crime was that?
He recalled when he had first heard about Mariotte’s blind spot. As a boy it had delighted him to carry out the experiment in which he drew a dot and a cross on a piece of paper, between six to eight inches apart. He would cover his right eye with his right hand. Then he would stare at the cross with his left eye. Gradually he would lean closer and closer to the paper until the magical moment when the dot disappeared entirely.
‘Was that the case here?’ he asked himself at one point. He thought back to the painting of the Venus and Cupid. ‘Did my vanity mean that I could not see that what she created when I was out of the room she created without my help?’ He put his head in his hands. ‘I have been a foolish old man.’
He tried to tell Cosway that as President of the Royal Academy it was his job to be at the forefront of any such discoveries. That he would be doing Ann Jemima and everyone else a favour by creating works of art on his own that, with this new knowledge, would outshine everyone else’s. That once he had been heralded a success by the critics, he would be able to give a series of lectures explaining his methods to the other artists.
Yet spoken out loud, such noble sentiments seemed revealed for the shabby dreams they were. ‘What should I do?’ he had said to Cosway. He detested himself but detested Cosway even more for his feeling of helplessness. He found himself thinking, if it were not for Cosway I would not even be caught up in this mess. It was he who decided to introduce me to the Provises in the first place. The swell of anger he felt at this point was irrational, and he recognised that. He managed not to punch Cosway as he replied calmly, ‘I think this can all easily be resolved.’
‘Easily?’ West replied with some astonishment.
Cosway nodded. ‘I think all the Provises ever wanted from you was acknowledgement they should be paid. If you had not ignored them repeatedly when they approached you, things would never have come to this pass.’
West’s head felt like a metal pot – in it, his fury started to steam. He had wanted to say to Cosway, ‘You yourself declared it was ridiculous that a man like Provis should have come by such a document. You yourself averred that without me they could never have proved the document’s authenticity.’ But where Cosway had been all flattery when he had first approached West about the matter, now he regarded him with sour disappointment.
‘Miss Provis particularly felt that she had achieved some kind of friendship with you. I think hers is the anger of someone who placed a great deal of affection and trust in you, and felt that both were trodden underfoot.’
His tone was never anything less than polite. Cosway would never be vulgar enough to make a direct accusation – it was all about insinuation, nuance. ‘Because of your secrecy about the reason for Miss Provis’s visits, she suffered even more than she had anticipated,’ he continued. ‘There were certain servants who witnessed her comings and goings, who drew unseemly conclusions.’ The eye contact was momentary, the voice velvety with impudence.
West leapt from his chair. ‘They thought that we were… that I was…?’
The words guttered out as he paced backwards and forwards. ‘Dear me,’ he started up again, ‘that I would stoop to…’
He looked at Cosway, who nodded gravely. Damn you again, West thought to himself, damn you. Truly we have reached the heights of absurdity. That you, who are renowned for your flirtations, should be in a position to accuse me.
‘She has, I trust, confirmed to you that there was nothing improper going on,’ he said. He felt the potential of the ground to disintegrate beneath his feet even as he issued the statement. Cosway was silent. ‘That is one impropriety, I hope, of which I have not been accused,’ continued West. Eventually Cosway replied,
‘No, of course. She is emphatic that your behaviour on that score has been without reproach.’
Again, the gentle emphasis on the words ‘on that score’. West flinched even as he felt relief.
The idea that he should write the letter explaining his conduct had been Farington and Smirke’s. There had been something cathartic about the process, he had to admit, as if the written words had acted as fastening pins for the reality that for several days had seemed to shift before him. He had slept easily that night for the first time since the accusations had been made. And the result was most unexpected. To his surprise, two days later came the written acknowledgement from the Provises that they accepted his version of events. So Cosway, West thought, regarding him more favourably now, had been right. The Provises’ attack had been motivated by hurt rather than cunning.
A week later Thomas Provis left his visiting card. That afternoon Provis and Ann Jemima were shown into West’s drawing room, just as they had been two years beforehand. West wondered if they were going to show any anger despite their supposed absolution of what he had done. But Ann Jemima in particular appeared friendly, deferential, even regretful of what had happened. West congratulated them, and thanked them for their charity. Yet the human heart is complex, and even as the pleasantries were exchanged between them, West felt as numb as a plank of wood. He realised that despite his relief, he had been stripped of any capacity for expression following the accusations. When the door finally closed behind them, he realised he would be quite happy if he never saw them again.
‘February 2, 1797 ‘William, my dearest brother,’ |
Newman Street, London |
He sits once more at the desk in his study. Outside the day is painted in greys – a cold drizzle washes through the streets and gutters.
‘I trust this finds you in good Health. Since we last corresponded, I fear to say that I have been thru’ the greatest upset of my Presidency, and know not if the Repercusions are yet over. I have written to you twice now of the girl Ann Jemima and the method she did bring me. After what seemed a most Excelent and fruitful exchange on art and the subject of Titian, I was considering what recompence I should give her for it. But while I prevaricated she and her Father did approach several members of the Academy and accuse me of theft.’
He thrusts the quill in its holder and puts his head in his hands.
‘Theft?’ he says to himself. ‘As if I were some vulgar pickpocket, or some petty house burglar. My reputation marched to Newgate gaol. It is a travesty.’
‘As you know,’ he continues, ‘such an accusation should instantly have been seen as Risible. But to my horror I realised many members of the Academy were convinc’d. Thus I was forc’d into declaring that the method itself was of Significant merit, regardless of my contribution, and that I had been wrong to withhold it from the other Artists.
‘Personally I Suspect’d that the accusation was that of the father and not of the girl. Its vulgarity and distorsion Seem’d out of keeping with her character. I sought to explain that it was my intention all along to present it to the Academy and acknowlege the Provises’ part in it at a time of my Chewsing. Thankfully the girl’s honesty and Perspicacitie did prevail. The Provises did agree that what had happened was down to a misunderstanding, rather than any crime on my part. After letters had been written on both sides, I was Absolv’d.’
Wearily he looks up at the painting on his wall that depicts a peace treaty between William Penn and the Lenape Tribe in Pennsylvania. It is a copy of a work he created for Penn’s son, Thomas, some years beforehand – at the point, he reflects bitterly, when he was riding high in both England and America following the success of The Death of General Wolfe. As requested, he had painted it so that it appeared to show perfect harmony between the Europeans and the natives of America. He had received much praise for it, but in his uneasy state of mind it strikes him with force that the painting depicts a lie, that it is a mask for hidden tensions that would play themselves out for decades.
He starts to write again.
‘What has transpired since has, I believe, vindicated me further. Ann Jemima did perform a Demonstrasion of the method to the artists, and several of them have now try’d it. Reports are now reaching me that a Number of them are unable to make it work. There is a young prodigy at the Academy called Thomas Lawrence. His Arroganse knows no bounds, and we have suffer’d Disagreements on a number of occasions. However, yesterday he came to me after taking a Lesson in the method with the two Provises. He told me he felt as if he had surendered his Paintbrush to two fools who knew much less than he did. In no small ironie, I did find myself defending the Provises. Yet he is now firmly resolv’d that it is Folly on the part of the other artists to credit them.
‘Mr Farington, most Insidi’ous individual that he is, is I should confess, having a little more success. Yet in truth, I have never had a great Admiration for his art – he is as cautious and calculating on the canvas as he is in Politicks. While his experiments with the method are no cause for embarrassment, there is equally Nothing that announces him to be the next Titian. Increasingly I believe I was right to delay handing over the sum of money, but I know better now, than to Declare such thoughts out loud.’
For a moment his face looks less weary. A half-smile starts to play on his lips as the quill continues to scratch across the paper.
‘No, the best way to acquit myself in Triumph is to enshure that even tho’ the Secret has now been shared, it will be I who displays the most impresive painting at the Academy’s forthcoming exhibition. Permit me a little Arroganse in this. The question of an apposite subject has taunted me for a while. If I did consult my heart, I would choose to paint my late dear friend Benjamin Franklin, whom I still believe to be the greatest American of our time. Since the method brings together science and art, it strikes me that his experiment to capture Electricyty from the sky would make an excellent subject for a work demonstrating its Merits.
‘Yet to my Sorrow it is – once more – a wretched time to celebrate being an American in this cold little ile. After a failed attempt this Christmas last, there are fears in Britain that there will be another invasion led by the French in Collaborasion with Irish Republicans. One of the commanders is said to be a certain American, Colonel William Tate. His family was kill’d by Native Americans who supported the British side in the American War of Independence. Thus he does hate the British.
‘I have never met this Colonel William Tate, nor am I Sympathetick to his immediate intentions. But because of him I must once more tread carefully in displaying the pride I have in my home country. Since Mr Franklin’s extraordinary Intellekt is considered in many quarters to have played an important part in pushing France towards its Revolution, I am in little doubt that I would invite considerable Opprobrium by creating his likeness.’
He looks out of the window. ‘Damn them,’ he whispers. ‘Damn them all. How often have I had to conceal my thoughts to remain acceptable to those around me? And still they have found a way to condemn me. I detest and loathe them all.’
He composes himself.
‘There is something stubbern in me’, he writes, ‘that cannot altogether Relinquish cherishing the memory of my dear friend. So I plan to do what many opress’d artists have done before now, and reach into history to pay a more Subtil tribute. The painting I plan to create will be set in Sicily, almost a century before the birth of Christ. Imagine if you will the heat of the sun, the darting of lizards, the sounds and smell of the sea. In front of you is the great Cicero, a politician and philosopher whose renown extends across the Roman Empire. He is leading the people of Syracuse to discover a secret that has lain hidden for centuries. That secret? Nothing less than the tomb of Archimedes, who, like my great friend Mr Franklin, was one of the great scientists and inventors of his time.
‘Consider the scene once more, and you may note another Seeries of parallels. Cicero – tho’ greater than your humble brother – resembled myself in many Aspekts. He too had raised himself up into public life through the Merits of self-education. He too had been forced to thrive in an environment dominated by civil unrest. He too had striven for moral uprightness in a time of conspiracy and corruption. And at the moment I want to capture in this painting, he was far from home on a small island. Archimedes had been a native of this island, and was probably its greatest son. Yet despite this fact, the natives of Syracuse had neglected his legacy so greatly that his tomb was overgrown, and people by this point had forgotten that it was there at all. What they needed was an outsider to reveal the value of his legacy, just as I am sure the Gentlemen of the Academy, need my insights to unlock this method.’
His foot starts to tap impatiently as he writes. ‘Perhaps it is too much,’ he mutters. ‘Perhaps I exalt myself too greatly.’ The expression in his eyes hardens. ‘Yet it will be sweet revenge. When they see that I can interpret the method like no other, when they realise that both in the subject I have chosen and in its execution I have had the last laugh…’
He grits his teeth.
‘We shall see how this plays at this year’s Exhibition. My sentiment is that even if it is Hail’d as a success, I am tempted to Resign my post and return to my beloved America. I have been away too many years now. In the Meenwhile wish me good fortune.
Your brother,
Benjamin.’