Page:Biagi - The Centaurians.djvu/275

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The Centaurians


decided the next time Alpha and I met she would behold a gentleman of the period of my world.

Strolling leisurely about the city, pondering upon the advisability of visiting Saxe. again, I suddenly sighted a tall, majestic building, whose portals stood wide with a gigantic statue of the angel Genius, smiling a welcome. It was the Salon, and remembering the artistic fisherman and fair Abella, I entered the gallery with much curiosity. I remained till sun-down. The fisherman's work was above and beyond anything in the gallery, not for merit, but originality. He aimed at the mysterious, the startling, and charmed the imagination. An artist who daringly flings upon the world a picture of dull sky and half-obscured moon is a master.

Originality is the child of imagination; Fame, the blossom.

There were many clever artists in this strange land, possibly more clever than the extraordinary fisherman, but their work lacked individuality and paled into insignificance before the wild combination of vivid, gaudy shades blended by the greatest artist in the world.

But as I viewed the portrait of the beauteous Abella, my admiration for her husband's art dwindled considerably. In the pink-and-white, simpering portrait the artist betrayed his lack of skill; he failed utterly to produce Abella's delicate archness and made her loveliness a type to compare with his strange ideal of pervertness. A long panel canvas revealed the dark-browed, intense production posed impossibly statuesque; deep, gloomy, intelli-

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