"Mr. Brown," he said on one occasion, while examining the picture on
the artist's easel, "no one since Claude has painted atmosphere as you
do. But you must follow Calame's example, and make drawing more of
a study. Draw from Nature, and do it faithfully, and with your
atmosphere I will back you against the world. That is bad," pointing
to the huge limb of a tree in the foreground: "it bulges both ways,
you see. Now, Nature is never so. Look at my arm," speaking with
increased animation, and suddenly throwing off his coat and rolling
up his shirt-sleeve. "When you see a convexity, you will see concavity
opposite. Just so in Nature, especially in the trunks and limbs of
trees."
This criticism made such an impression on Brown that it decided him
to go into more laborious work, and was the foundation of his habit
of getting up at daybreak and going out to sketch rocks, trees and
cattle, until he stands where he now does as a draughtsman.
The painting which Brullof had first admired, and which had induced
him to compare Brown to Claude in atmospheric effects, was a view of
the Pontine Marshes, painted for Crawford the sculptor, and now in
possession, of his widow, Mrs. Terry, at Rome.
During this entire season the penuriousness exhibited by Brullof is
one of the hardest phases of his character to explain. Though he was
worth at least half a million of dollars, his meals were generally of
the scantiest kind, purchased by the Italian cicerone, and cooked and
eaten in his room.
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