Page 43 of A Shore Thing

She drew back. “You assume that I agree.”

“It isn’t debatable. Raphael. Da Vinci. Michelangelo. Rubens. Rembrandt. Turner. I could go on and on. There’s no list you or anyone could produce of female equivalents.”

“Perhaps that is not because women are deficient.” Her eyes were cutting him now, narrow and angry. “But because we haven’t had the same opportunities.”

He nodded. “It is far more difficult to achieve greatness as an artist if, for example, your education excludes study of the nude model, as is the case for female students at the Royal Academy Schools.”

She’d put up her chin to argue. He saw the moment she realized that he’d said nothing to contradict—a quizzical little flutter of her lids.

He continued, the words coming faster. “And, of course, far fewer women attend the Academy in the first place. You need training to paint. Also, time and space. Money can buy a man all three. But not a woman. Her training is categorically inferior. Her time isn’t considered her own. She can’t close a door that her husband, father, son, or brother can’t open. She is encouraged to limit her expression, to devote herself to ordering a household. She’s taught that invention is beyond her. A man may face material obstacles to becoming an artist, but even a well-resourced woman has to battle social expectations, continually. How much less likely is she to paint a masterpiece?”

Muriel regarded him in stunned silence.

He felt a surge of pleasant anticipation.

“Mr. Griffith,” she said coolly. “How much less likely are women to do anything when men will not stop yammering?”

The surge piddled into a nauseating slosh.

“Why, yes,” he attempted, rubbing his brow. “That is what I meant.”

“And what you exemplified.”

“Erm.” He felt as though his finger were poking his own brain. He used to silence male blowhards with that same pointed look Muriel was giving him now. He’d miscalculated, speaking so authoritatively from an experience she’d no idea they shared.

“You don’t need me to tell you about women,” he muttered.

“Or the tides,” she reminded him. “Or the connection between women and the tides, as symbolized by sirens.”

At this last, his lips tugged into a smile. She was thorough when it came to withering commentary.

“Just so,” he agreed. “I’ve learned my lesson.”

“I doubt it,” she said, but she was softening visibly, her gaze more curious than outraged. “All right. Women rarely paint masterpieces, for the reasons you mentioned. What does that have to do with your painting? Or not painting, as the case may be?”

“It’s why I stopped. I won’t allow my works to confirm a harmful myth about the mystical talent of the artist.”

“Oh, you won’t?” Something about her tone made him uneasy.

“No, I won’t.” He persisted anyway. “Stories about artistic prodigies obscure the social conditions that determine the lion’s share of success.”

“Unbelievable.” She was shaking her head.

“What is?”

“Your arrogance.”

“Oh.” He frowned. “That’s what you gather from this? That I’m arrogant?”

“You are insufferably arrogant. And I am sorry I ever praised you. You don’t think too highly of yourself to paint seaweed. You think too highly of yourself to paint at all.”

“Look here.” He bristled. “I wasn’t suggesting that I am a mystically talented prodigy. I referred to all that nonsense as myth.”

Her expression remained unchanged.

“You gave up painting,” she said. “Gave it up out of pity, I take it? Pity for the unknown women who never attained their full potential?”

“Pity? Lord, no.” He laughed a strained laugh. “In solidarity, perhaps. But it’s more complicated.”