The Optickal Illusion Read online

  ‘You are invited for a demonstration by Benjamin West,’ the invitation reads. ‘The gentlemen of the Academy are asked to assemble for a Discourse on the Rainbow at eight o’clock, followed by dinner at nine o’clock.’

  The Somerset House clock has just struck seven. West has let himself into the great Council Room one full hour before the other painters are due to arrive. He opens the door to find it still in darkness. From an adjoining kitchen there is the clatter of knives, forks and plates being prepared for the night’s great battle of the dinner table. He walks to one of the windows. As he opens the shutter, the moonlight filters into the room, white lines scoring themselves against the black. Chairs set out for the Academy meeting fill the place with a sense of expectation.

  He thinks of the figures who shortly will fill those chairs. Ghosts of his mind that soon will become flesh, in all its squabbling, vitriolic imperfection. It shocks him to acknowledge how few of his fellow artists he truly likes. He recalls with exhaustion the arguments and debates that began before this society was even founded, just five years after he first arrived in London.

  The Academy was to herald a revolution – before the word became politically explosive. It would be a place of experiment, of instruction, of the introduction of new and exciting names to a public ever more voracious for novelty and acquisition. West remembers how he daily petitioned the King to agree to provide both funds and his royal approval for this society.

  ‘The art we worship is too often by dead people, and confined to aristocrats’ drawing rooms,’ he had declared when he went to see him at Hampton Court. The King was sitting in the formal gardens beneath a chilly spring sky. Servants were serving coffee accompanied by plain bread and cold meat, in accordance with the King’s frugal tastes. To his surprise, the King invited him to sit down. Most of their meetings to date had been conducted with West standing.

  ‘We need to follow Hogarth’s example,’ West continued, encouraged by this gesture of friendliness, ‘and put paintings by living artists in buildings where the great public can see them.’

  He remembers how the King’s fleshy lips had twitched, how a light of amused curiosity had crossed the bulbous eyes.

  ‘Unwashed or washed?’

  ‘Your Majesty, I do not quite comprehend.’

  He felt not the twitch of anxiety that he would have these days – the King’s bouts of madness had yet to commence.

  ‘You wish that any individual should be able to attend an exhibition – be they unwashed or washed, a barrow-boy or a baron?’

  ‘I wish yet more than this – I wish that any individual should be able to paint for an exhibition. You are a great patron of artistic talent, Your Majesty. You will know as well as any connoisseur that art finds its disciples in all types of soil. Da Vinci was the bastard child of a peasant girl and a notary. Rembrandt was a miller’s son. I want Britain to create an academy that will allow men from any background to achieve excellence. Whoever joins it, no matter what their origins, can receive the tutoring and training that will allow them to become great.’

  A sharp breeze picked up, but George showed no discomfort. As West took a sip of the bitter coffee, he reflected with surprise on the King’s growing warmth towards him. Both had been born in the same year, both – though neither knew it – were destined to die in the same year. As they approached the age of thirty, each was distinguished by a certain social awkwardness. Yet though only one was king, both had the arrogance to believe that the world around them could be moulded like clay into a shape that would be equally pleasing to both creator and beholder.

  ‘You make a different case for an Academy from other artists.’ The King took a large bite from a hunk of bread, and sat quietly for a moment as he chewed. ‘Some,’ he continued, ‘like Joshua Reynolds, talk of improving painters’ status in England. Others talk of rivalling the French and Italians with new standards of excellence. You talk of equality.’

  West stared down to the Thames. He became aware of a long boat, a clamour of voices, bright colours, and sudden silence as the passengers realised whom they were passing. What perverse logic is urging me to talk to you of such things? he thought.

  Out loud he said, ‘I come from a young country where it is important that each man can make of himself what he wants.’

  ‘In England that makes you a radical.’

  ‘In America it does not,’ West replied quietly.

  The King studied him.

  ‘You know I would have to make Joshua Reynolds president, and not you,’ he eventually said. ‘I find the man hard to tolerate – he talks to me as if I were a stupid child. Yet Reynolds is your senior if not your better. He suffers not from the need to be original – his portraits are modelled on those of other artists, and it is known throughout London that assistants paint the clothes. But he can quote Plato while holding a paintbrush. And thus he is seen as a genius.’

  West dipped his head, and smiled.

  ‘I had no expectation of being President. I know that I suffer too much from the vice of originality.’

  ‘You are also a foreigner and an outsider.’

  ‘Just like your grandfather, Your Majesty.’

  The bulbous eyes glimmered.

  ‘The art world is as closely ranked as any of the tribes I have encountered in America,’ West continued. ‘I recognise that though I have been here some years, many believe I am not fully initiated. I am not fool enough to wrestle with their ambition.’

  In the dark, almost thirty years later, his eyes are torn towards the giant plaster cast of Laocoön that looms at the back of the room. Its whiteness is just discernible in the dark, yet West has sketched it so often that he can see its details as clearly as if it were daylight. A man in agony wrestles for eternity in the grip of serpents, his face turned to the sky, his muscular body contorted with pain. One son is on either side of him, both trapped in the serpents’ coils.

  ‘I lied then – I was always fool enough,’ he whispers. ‘And now I have been made President, I have discovered my foolishness.’ He thinks of how the King’s attitude to him has changed since that time. Following American Independence the rare and remarkable intimacy between them has died. Now that George is marked by madness and political failure, West never knows in what mood he will be on those rare occasions when he receives him.

  In the room next door there is a sound of crashing and shouting. A servant rushes into the darkened room where West is sitting, only to exclaim loudly as he lights the first oil lamp and sees the President sitting there.

  ‘My apologies,’ says West quietly.

  ‘Shall I put out the light?’ The servant has thin anxious lips and darting eyes – as he starts backwards, his face is all consternation.

  West laughs wryly, and stands up. ‘Please do not worry – you can continue. I am expecting the first arrival imminently.’

  The servant falters. ‘And are the instructions right? That you want the lights to be on till all the artists arrive, and then you wish them to be extinguished?’

  ‘That is right.’

  There is a sense of words being swallowed. But the servant does not see fit to offer more questions, nor West to answer them. The young man continues to make his agitated progress round the room, lifting the cylindrical glass covers to light the lamps. Slowly the room is shown in its entirety. Laocoön’s full agony is revealed behind dining tables that are arranged in a horseshoe shape. West observes afresh how he has grasped one of the snakes that is trying to kill him, hopelessly fighting back against his fate.

  He looks back out of the window. ‘At least there are no clouds tonight. The experiment should work well.’ He picks up a leather case, walks and places it on a desk with a tabletop easel. Then he lifts the lid and surveys the three-sided piece of glass contained within it. Cautiously he takes it out and holds it up towards the window. As he gazes at it he becomes deaf to the noises around him – the continued clatter of cutlery, the metallic slap of lids on pans, and the ligh
t thud of the servant’s footsteps that eventually retreat to leave him alone again.

  Henry Fuseli – one of the artists due to attend West’s talk – walks to the window of a private dining room in a City tavern and looks up to the sky. The moon filters through his distinctive white hair, which surges from his scalp like thistle seed. He turns his gaze down to Fleet Street, to the revellers descending from carriages and lone walkers stumbling through the cobbles. Any shreds of sound from outside are eclipsed by the drunken roar coming from within the tavern itself.

  ‘There will be an army of mad people out tonight,’ he declares in a strong Swiss-German accent. ‘This is the kind of moon that conjures up werewolves, and sets old crones singing to their gin bottles.’

  He turns to regard his companion, Joseph Johnson, who sits staring at his wine goblet as if he is haunted by it.

  ‘London feels perpetually in the grip of the moon these days,’ Johnson replies. He looks towards Fuseli. ‘But I do not fear werewolves. I reserve my worries for the men who work for Mr Pitt.’

  ‘You tease me for my fascination with the irrational.’

  A brief smile flits across Johnson’s lips.

  ‘You are a rationalist fascinated with the dark creatures of our minds. No painter has ever before tried to capture this aspect of who we are. So I salute you for your spirit of experiment.’ He pauses. ‘But if you’ll forgive me, right now our Prime Minister seems more sinister.’

  Fuseli’s eyes catch light, his laugh has a dangerous edge to it.

  ‘I despise the man as you do, but we are not going to say farewell to him any time soon. His victory in this year’s election has left the opposition with no more power than a mewling pup.’

  ‘Yet Pitt still fears the people.’

  ‘The people are fickle. That is a huge part of their power. With subversives like yourself on the loose, who knows what may happen?’

  ‘Please do not tease me.’

  Fuseli surveys the face regimented with straight lines – as if to denote the measured aspect of Johnson’s personality – the hollows in the cheeks, the long thin nose.

  ‘Chide me not, Joseph. I remember all too well what it is like to be persecuted.’

  Johnson’s gaze relents. ‘I know you do.’

  ‘I am not so brave as you. I simply accused a corrupt Swiss magistrate – you and the writers you publish accuse whole governments.’

  ‘Yet for your accusations you were forced to flee your country.’

  Fuseli looks at him searchingly.

  ‘Some might say that was a fortunate outcome.’

  Swiftly he walks across the room and kisses Johnson full on the mouth. For a moment Johnson responds passionately. Then he pushes him violently away.

  ‘You cannot do that here.’ His eyes blaze savagely, as he steps backwards. His goblet falls over, and wine eddies its way onto the floor covered with sawdust. ‘Pitt has reasons enough for arresting me,’ he says, swiftly righting the goblet. ‘Do you desire to send me to the gallows, man?’

  His head flicks anxiously towards the door of the private dining room, as if suddenly expecting to see accusers standing there. But there is no one, nor is there any foot on the stair. He breathes more slowly.

  ‘I will always…’ His eyes say the rest. ‘But we agreed…’ He grits his teeth. ‘We agreed that we would imperil ourselves no longer. Besides, you are married…’

  Fuseli starts to whistle.

  ‘Let us have a little more wine.’

  Before Johnson can stop him he walks out of the room and hollers down the stairs. As the footsteps come running, he turns in the doorway and regards his companion.

  ‘You know I would never put you in danger.’

  Johnson is silent.

  A boy with an impudent, slightly dirty face stands at the door.

  ‘A flagon of Chateaubriand, if you will.’

  The boy disappears. Fuseli walks back towards Johnson, who flinches. Fuseli holds up his hand in acquiescence, and takes his seat at the other side of the table.

  ‘I must depart before too long.’ Fuseli drains his glass. ‘I promised Mr West I would arrive at the Academy early. He wishes to consult me in private about whether he should buy a document that has been brought to him by a young female artist. Her father works at St James’s Palace.’

  Johnson takes a deep breath as he regards him warily.

  ‘He trusts you greatly, does he not?’

  ‘In matters of the intellect, I am both trustworthy and discreet.’

  The room is taut with Johnson’s unspoken response.

  ‘I am also more sceptical on such matters than many of those who surround him. I believe he wants to consult me because he knows I shall advise him not to buy the document,’ Fuseli continues. ‘It appears to promise miracles. I have seen many similar works, and I wouldn’t give a farthing for any of them.’

  Johnson taps his fingers impatiently.

  ‘Henry, how many of the artists at the Academy are like us?’

  ‘In what sense?’ The question is meant to provoke.

  ‘I mean politically,’ Johnson replies with irritation.

  ‘There are artists of all political persuasions, though most are fonder of our Leader of the Opposition, Charles Fox, than Mr Pitt.’

  Johnson nods as if some theory has been confirmed.

  ‘It is one of the great contradictions of the Academy,’ continues Fuseli. ‘Without the King’s funding and benevolence, many of us would struggle to hold body and soul together. The revolution in France excited us. But you will find few of us arguing for regicide, including myself.’

  They stare at each other for a moment. The door opens to the dining room again, and the boy walks in briskly to place the flagon on the table. Fuseli pays him, before filling both goblets to the brim.

  ‘Let us drink these in one. Invoke the spirit of Epicurus,’ he declares.

  ‘If we invoke the spirit of Epicurus, we believe that tomorrow we die,’ responds Johnson drily.

  ‘A coward dies a thousand deaths…’

  ‘Yet neither of us is a coward.’

  Fuseli walks to the window.

  ‘Let us simply drink and be merry.’ But his voice is low and serious. He turns. ‘Then walk with me to the Academy. Let us teach bravery and truth to the werewolves.’

  He raises his goblet and downs it. Johnson hesitates.

  ‘I will walk with you briefly.’ He pushes his goblet aside untouched and stands up.

  ‘Please?’ Fuseli stares at the goblet. Reluctantly Johnson picks it up. He holds it out. ‘To the downfall of Pitt.’

  Fuseli nods.

  ‘That is as good a toast as any.’

  A sound of singing and stamping rises up from the room below them. As Johnson drinks, the empty flagon shakes on the table.

  John Opie stares down at the Thames and shivers. He can hear his father’s voice in his head. ‘You’ll end up on the gallows.’ Blue eyes raw with rage, mouth trembling. ‘An artist is of no use to anyone.’

  Of all the perversions that a Cornish carpenter’s son could have manifested, an inclination towards art was the worst. It went hand in hand with idleness, the most despicable of the deadly sins. Now imagining his father’s face, John can see the large nose, the acute hollows in the cheeks, the eyebrows thick with disapproval. The hair on his head long gone, as if burnt off by his perpetual industry. ‘Your journey to London will take you straight to hell,’ he had shouted. Opie thought he had proved him wrong, but the most recent year of his life has killed this conviction.

  Down below him the river Thames laps black against its banks, the path of moonlight like a slash of white paint on its surface. Shoals of secrets swimming below. Shudders of forgotten suicides; connivings of thieves; ecstatic ululations of forbidden lovers. His imagination flies ahead of him into the darkness, down towards the Pool of London. Now it is full of ships whose stillness makes them phantoms, but in the day their comings and goings trace the precarious lin
es of George III’s empire.

  Not for the first time he curses the day that Dr Pindar arrived in his village. Opie had been just fifteen. Pindar was a corpulent man with a ruddy demeanour and a nose that shone perpetually as if it had been greased. Through brown teeth he barked stories about Michelangelo, Durer, and Giorgione. At first the people of Trevellas laughed at him, but then he became better known for his power to hypnotise a room with his tales and observations. Only the very perceptive could see how the ugliness masked a grotesque vanity, how the flamboyantly displayed knowledge was a shoddy patchwork of fiction and fact.

  Yet Pindar’s years of posturing had offered him at least one glimmer of perception. After seeing Opie’s paintings at a patient’s house in Trevellas, he was persuaded that the boy’s talents were wasted in a small village. First he offered the boy tuition, then he offered him a new life. Five years later, as Opie’s father issued his damnations, the pair set off to London to launch the boy as ‘The Cornish Wonder.’

  ‘I was nothing more than a pawn in his game,’ Opie thinks wretchedly. He had suspected this to be the case from the start. But the lure of London made him ignore his worries, and once they arrived he had quickly found himself surrounded by admirers. Sir Joshua Reynolds himself had hailed him as the new Caravaggio. Soon Pindar had organised an introduction to the King. As a child Opie had demonstrated a remarkable intellect, mastering Euclid by twelve and quoting Newton on Natural Philosophy by the age of fourteen. But Pindar was far too cunning to let this detract from his protégé’s allure. He spread the rumour that Opie had never read a book or had a painting lesson in his life, that he was talent rough-hewn from Cornish stone. The device worked perfectly.

  Soon Opie’s rooms at Orange Court were filled with every specimen of love token that the city had to offer. Miniature portraits, ribbons, scent bottles – a shameless treasury of engraved coins. Opie quickly discovered how an arch smile could lead to a flash of nipple, how a chaste whisper could precede a full seduction. London had always danced in his mind as a place of opportunity, yet he had never imagined such an orgy of flesh. He did not suffer from physical vanity – did not comprehend how with his dark hair, long patrician nose and the somewhat insolent set of his mouth, he would have had female disciples if he had possessed but half his talent. Nor did he understand that wielding axes and hauling around large pieces of wood in his father’s workshop had given him an enviable physique. ‘Able to snap some of the fops of London in half with a mere glance,’ whispered one virgin as she thrust her hand inside his breeches.