The gondolier, accustomed to the service of
artists, shouted to the painter, till Renovales came down with his box
of water-colors and the boat started immediately through the narrow,
winding canals, moving the silvered comb of its prow from one side to
the other as if it were feeling the way. What mornings of placid silence
in the sleeping water of an alley, between two palaces whose boldly
projecting roofs kept the surface of the little canal in perpetual
shadow! The gondolier slept stretched out in one of the curving ends of
his boat and Renovales, sitting beside the black canopy, painted his
Venetian water-colors, a new type that his impresario in Rome received
with the greatest enthusiasm. His deftness enabled him to produce these
works with as much facility as if they were mechanical copies. In the
maze of canals he had one of his own which he called his "estate" on
account of the money it netted him. He had painted again and again its
dead, silent waters which all day long were never rippled except by his
gondola; two old palaces with broken blinds, the doors covered with the
crust of years, stairways rotted with mold and in the background a
little arch of light, a marble bridge and under it the life, the
movement, the sun of a broad, busy canal. The neglected little alley
came to life every week under Renovales' brush--he could paint it with
his eyes shut--and the business initiative of the Roman Jew scattered it
through the world.
Pages:
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94