One rainy afternoon I discovered a small oil painting in a room at an exhibition. Saying "discovered" sounds like an exaggeration, but I think I am justified: it was hanging alone in a particularly poorly lit corner-- as though forgotten-- in a terribly cheap frame. It was called something like "The Marsh," and the artist was no one I had heard of. The painting itself depicted nothing but muddy water, muddy soil and the thick vegetation growing there. Most viewers must have passed it literally without a second glance.

Strangely enough, the artist had painted the thick growth of vegetation without using a single stroke of green. The colors of the reeds, the poplars and the fig trees were all muddy yellows. This was the oppressive yellow of wet stucco. Had trees and bushes actually seemed that color to the artist? Or was it something he happened to like and decided to exaggerate? As I stood in front of the painting absorbing the sensation it gave me, I was caught between the two possibilities.

But as I looked at the painting I realized a formidable power was lurking there. The mud in the foreground, in particular, was depicted so precisely that I could feel it pull at my feet with each step. I sensed a smooth mire that released the foot with a sucking sound, and then covered it to the ankle. Within this little oil I found the pitiful figure of an artist attempting a sensitive grasp of nature. The yellow vegetation of this marsh gave me the same sense of spellbinding tragedy in all superior works of art. In fact, of all the large and small paintings hanging in the gallery, there was not one with the strength to rival this one.

"You seem to really admire it."

Someone tapped my shoulder as he spoke. I spun around feeling that something had just been shaken out of my heart.

"What do you think of this one?"

My companion spoke indifferently, pointing at the marsh with his freshly shaved chin. He wore a fashionable suit and was himself nicely built, and he had an air of being well-informed-- a newspaper fine arts reporter. I remembered having gotten an unfavorable impression of this reporter several times previously, and so answered reluctantly.

"It's a masterpiece"

"This one-- a masterpiece? How amusing!"

The amusement shook the reporter's belly. Perhaps he was himself surprised by the sound of it. Two or three people looking at nearby paintings turned in unison to stare at us. I didn't find it pleasant.

"How amusing. You know, this isn't the painting of a member. But because he had kept on applying-- it had gotten to be a habit-- his survivors appealed to one of the judges, and finally they decided to hang it here in the corner."

"Survivors? Then the man who painted this picture is dead?"

"He is dead. But even when he was alive, he was as good as dead."

My curiosity overcame my distaste for the reporter. "What do you mean?"

"The man who did this painting had been mad for some time."

"Even when he painted this one?"

"But of course! Would anyone use such colors if he weren't mad? And that is what you admire as a masterpiece. I find it very amusing."

The reporter, having won his point, laughed aloud. He apparently meant to shame my ignorance. Or to go a little deeper, he may have wanted to impress me with his own superiority at art appreciation. Either hope was in vain. As he spoke an indescribable wave of some solemn emotion flowed through my whole being. Filled with terror, I again stared at the painting of the marsh. And once again I perceived in this small canvas the pitiful figure of an artist cursed with restlessness and anxiety.

"He seems to have gone mad because the painting could not show all he wanted. For that point alone I will buy it if it can be bought."

The reporter beamed a smile that was almost joyous. That was the only compensation this unknown artist-- one of us-- received from the world for the sacrifice of his life. Thoroughly chilled, I looked again at the gloomy oil painting. There between the dark sky and water the yellow mud-colored reeds, poplars and ashes were alive with a monstrous vitality which showed nature itself . . .

"A masterpiece," I repeated proudly, looking the reporter straight in the face.