It is a very great sickness."
"And now you understand the picture," I cried.
He shook his head, and asked, "The little girl - does it die?"
It was my turn for silence.
"Does it die?" he reiterated. "You are a painter-man. Maybe you
know."
"No, I do not know," I confessed.
"It is not life," he delivered himself dogmatically. "In life
little girl die or get well. Something happen in life. In picture
nothing happen. No, I do not understand pictures."
His disappointment was patent. It was his desire to understand all
things that white men understand, and here, in this matter, he
failed. I felt, also, that there was challenge in his attitude.
He was bent upon compelling me to show him the wisdom of pictures.
Besides, he had remarkable powers of visualization. I had long
since learned this. He visualized everything. He saw life in
pictures, felt life in pictures, generalized life in pictures; and
yet he did not understand pictures when seen through other men's
eyes and expressed by those men with color and line upon canvas.
"Pictures are bits of life," I said.
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