By Chapter 50, Philip, having chucked religion and accounting, begins to doubt his decision to become an artist. He asks Lawson, a fellow art student:
“I wonder if it’s worth while being a second-rate painter… if you’re a doctor or if you’re in business, it doesn’t matter so much if you’re mediocre. You make a living and you get along. But what is the good of turning out second-rate pictures?”
Later, he talks to another student, Clutton, who is maturing as an artist, or at least affecting the attitude of one. Clutton tells him:
...a great painter forces the world to see nature as he sees it: but in the next generation another painter sees the world in another way, and then the public judges him not by himself but by his predecessor…. When Monet came along and painted differently, people said: But trees aren’t like that. It never struck them that trees are exactly how a painter chooses to see them. We paint from within outwards – if we force our vision on the world it calls us great painters; if we don’t it ignores us; but we are the same… What happens to our work afterwards is unimportant; we have got all we could out of it while we were doing it.”
Finally, Philip talks to Cronshaw, the older, debauched man who barely makes a living as a writer.
Philip: “I don’t believe I shall ever do much good as a painter… I’m thinking of chucking it.”
Cronshaw: “Why shouldn’t you?”
Philip: “I suppose I like the life.”
Cronshaw, surveying the environs: “This?... If you can get out of it, do while there’s time.”
...
Philip stared at him with astonishment… He knew that he was looking upon the tragedy of failure.
This is all good stuff. It’s a bit obvious at my age, and I probably would have scoffed at it when I was younger. My interest is still piqued.
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