‘How very delightful Max’s drawings are. For all their mad perspective and crude colour, they have, indeed, the sentiment of style, and they reveal with rarer delicacy than does any other record the spirit of Lloyd-George’s day.’ This sentence is not quite original: it is adapted from an eminent author because the words sum up so completely the inexpressible satisfaction following an inspection of Mr. Beerbohm’s caricatures. To-day essentially belongs to the Minister who once presided at the Board of Trade. Several attempts indeed have been made to describe the literature, art and drama of the present as ‘Edwardian,’ from a very proper and loyal spirit, to which I should be the last to object. We were even promised a few years ago a new style of furniture to inaugurate the reign—something to supplant that Louis Dix-neuviÈme dÉcor which is merely a compromise Just as we go to Kneller and Lely for speaking portraits of the men who made their age, so I believe our descendants will turn to Max for listening likenesses of the present generation. Of all modern artists, he alone follows Hamlet’s advice. If the mirror is a convex one, that is merely the accident of genius, and reflects the malady of the century. * * * * If, reader, you have ever been to a West-end picture shop, you will have suffered some annoyance on looking too attentively at any item in the exhibition, by the approach of an officious attendant, who presses you to purchase it. He begins by flattery; he felicitates you on your choice of the best picture in the room—the one that has been ‘universally admired by critics and collectors.’ The fact of its not being sold is due (he naÏvely confesses) to its rather high price; several offers have been submitted, and if not sold at the catalogued amount the artist has promised to consider them; but it is very unlikely that the drawing will remain long without a red ticket, ‘as people come back to town to-morrow.’ There is the stab, the stab in the back while you were drinking honey; the tragedy of It was my duty, my pleasurable duty, so to act for Mr. Beerbohm’s caricatures when exhibited at a fashionable West-end gallery where among the visitors I recognised many of his models. I observe that when Mr. Beerbohm is a friend of his victim he is generally at his best; that he is always excellent and often superb if he is in sympathy with the personality of that victim, however brutally he may render it. His failures are due to lack of sympathy, and they are often, oddly enough, the mildest as caricatures. Fortunately, Mr. Beerbohm selects chiefly celebrities who are either personal friends or those for whom he must have great admiration and sympathy. By a divine palmistry he estimates them with exquisite perception. I noted that those who were annoyed with their own caricature either did not know Mr. Beerbohm or disliked his incomparable writings; and, curiously enough, And let me reproduce a conversation with one of the visitors. It is illustrative:— [Scene: The Carfax Gallery; rather empty; early morning: Caricatures by Max Beerbohm; entrance one shilling. Enter Distinguished Client, takes catalogue, but does not consult it. No celebrity ever consults a catalogue in a modern picture-gallery. This does not apply to ladies, however distinguished, who conscientiously begin at number one and read out from the catalogue the title of each picture. Shopman in attendance.] D. C. (glancing round). Yes; how very clever they are. Shopman. Yes; they are very amusing. D. C. I suppose you have had heaps of People. What a pity Max cannot draw! Shopman. Yes; it is a great pity. D. C. (examines drawing; after a pause). But he can draw. Look at that one of Althorp. D. C. (pointing to photograph of Paris inserted in Mr. Claude Lowther’s caricature). And how extraordinary that is. It is like one of Muirhead Bone’s street scenes. He does street scenes, doesn’t he? Shopman. Yes; or one of Mr. Joseph Pennell’s. D. C. (after a pause). What a pity he never gets the likeness. That’s very bad of Arthur Balfour. Shopman. Yes; it is a great pity. No; that’s not at all a good one of Mr. Balfour. D. C. (pointing to Mr. Shaw’s photograph inserted in caricature). But he has got the likeness there. By Jove! it’s nearly as good as a photograph. Shopman (examining photograph as if he had never seen it; enthusiastically). It’s almost as good as a photograph. D. C. (pointing with umbrella to Lord Weardale). Of course, that’s Rosebery? Shopman (nervously): Y-e-s. (Brightly changing subject.) What do you think of Mr. Sargent’s? Shopman. Yes; by Methuen & Co. (Hastily going over to new-comer.) Yes, madam, that is Mr. Arthur Balfour; it’s considered the best caricature in the exhibition—the likeness is so particularly striking; and as a pure piece of draughtsmanship it is certainly the finest drawing in the room. No; that’s not so good of Lord Althorp, though it was the first to sell. (Turning to another client.) Yes, sir; he is Mr. Beerbohm Tree’s half-brother. (1907.) To Mrs. Beerbohm. |