Claude & Camille by Stephanie Cowell

Author:Stephanie Cowell [Cowell, Stephanie]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-0-307-46323-4
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group
Published: 2010-10-07T04:00:00+00:00

He hesitated as he put the letter out to be mailed by his chauffeur. He had not told Annette the whole truth in his previous letter, for he had known very well that she had returned to Paris not recently but many years before.

Part Four

1869

I’m chasing the merest sliver of color. It’s my own fault, I want to grasp the intangible. It’s terrible how the light runs out, taking color with it.

—CLAUDE MONET

AS THE OPENING OF THE FIRST EXHIBITION OF THE SOCIETY of Anonymous Artists approached that autumn, the artists themselves were so excited they could talk of nothing else. Claude and Auguste met at a new framing shop near the École des Beaux-Arts to decide how to frame their work. Each painter could contribute six or eight paintings, and Claude had decided on two of his redeemed seascapes from Le Havre, which were already framed. The others needed framing, including some he had made the past summer while staying with Camille and Jean in a small village near a little bathing spot on the Seine called La Grenouillère. Auguste, whose parents lived nearby, had painted with him.

The two artists stood together under the hanging forest of frames hung on ropes from the ceiling: they were of every sort of wood and weight, painted or gilded, or carved with flowers. Each seemed to whisper, “Within me might live the work of a great artist.”

Auguste asked, “Do you remember how we met in art class? You spoke to no one.”

“I didn’t feel very confident.”

They reached up to take down samples of one frame or another. They touched them gently and set them swinging like chimes, clinking into one another and moving away again. They knelt and tried the samples around the paintings.

After several hours they chose, deliberating between beauty and cost, compromising.

“Monsieur,” Auguste told the framer. “You will accept a small deposit from us, the rest payable in three months?”

“Bien sûr,” replied the man. “Come back in a week and all will be ready for you.”

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