Artistic License

The thing I like about Madame Merle and Gilbert Osmond is that they are watercolorists--artistes, if you will. I like painters in general so it’s probable that I'm going to cut both of these shady characters some slack in my sequel to “The Portrait of a Lady,” my opinion being, they can’t be all bad.

Here’s a conversation between the former lovers in Osmond’s modest villa in Florence with the charming views and the “perfect rooms.” Madame Merle is paying a call to tell him of her find; a Miss Archer who will meet all of his requirements, mentioned in the previous post, and that she plans to bring her to see his “museum.” She has piqued his interest but he diverts her for a moment to digest the information.

…he pointed out the easel supporting the little water-colour drawing. ‘Have you seen what’s there--my last?” Madame Merle drew near and considered. ‘Is it the Venetian Alps--one of your last year’s sketches?’
‘Yes--but how you guess everything!’
She looked a moment longer, then turned away. ‘You know I don’t care for your drawings.’
‘I know it, yet I’m always surprised at it. They’re really so much better than most people’s.’
‘That may very well be. But as the only thing you do--well, it’s so little. I should have liked you to do so many other things: those were my ambitions.’
‘Yes, you have told me many times--things that were impossible.’
‘Things that were impossible,’ said Madame Merle. And then in quite a different tone: ‘In itself your little picture’s very good.'

What has this conversation to do with anything? Nothing really. I like her criticism to make her own point, then alternately, to compliment. Madame Merle has a way of speaking in dichotomies--not to be taken literally. This is apparent throughout James’s novel. Osmond uses similar methods to obfuscate. Poor Isabel, young, unworldly, is no challenge for these two spin-meisters. They lead her down a path.

I include a sketch of Rome by one of my favorite artists, Claude Lorrain for no reason other than the Osmonds now live in Rome where my sequel is taking place and that I’m in an artistic frame of mind and want to gussy up the post a bit. Since Osmond and his little water-colour sketch are a only a fiction, I have looked elsewhere for visual interest.

"View of the Church of St.Trinita dei Monti, Rome," c.1632, 
Claude Lorrain