Work Text:
A beautiful, gentle mother. A handsome, intelligent father. A lovely room in a lovely house. Lovely people in a lovely city. Who wouldn't want to put that down on paper?
Saying, this is how I see the world.
Saying, this is how I want to see the world.
Saying, isn't the world beautiful?
All without words.
Am I not loved, for the world to be so beautiful?
Am I not loved, to be encouraged to show how this world is beautiful?
In ink, in pencil, in paint: draw a family portrait. Draw a self-portrait. Draw a stranger. Draw the neighbors, draw the hometutors—stern history, affable Latin, brooding math—draw everyone and draw no one. Draw the flowers, the trees, the furniture, rooms normally bustling empty, rooms empty full. Draw anything! Draw everything!
Then, in the spring, there is:
Mother shadowed under a parasol in the garden, surrounded by her favorite flowers. Her back is turned but you will call for her and she will smile ever so gently, ever so sweetly that it rivals the lilies and lilacs and all the other flowers whose names slip out of your head, but you cannot forget this moment.
You make the moment last forever: you paint it.
Your father has the painting framed and hung in the entryway across a mirror: stand and look at the you looking, chin barely passing the bottom of the mirror's frame.
Then, in the summer, there is:
A voice stopping you, nearly making you drop the sheaf of sketches crooked under your arm.
"Edgar," repeats Mother, making you turn around. "Say hello."
A woman, rich, you can tell from her dress, looks you up and then down: the messy hair with the ribbon dangling from your fingers, specks of paint drying on your clothes, a streak of black on your arm from reaching over a stack of charcoal sketches—you had been drawing the view from your window.
You say, politely, "Good afternoon, madam," and ascend the stairs.
Over dinner, your mother tells you that the woman—a duchess or countess or something or other—was interested in having you paint her alongside her children.
You don't think anything of it when you say yes. It's neither a beginning nor an end for anyone at that point.
Then, in the fall, there is:
On the rare day where your father isn't busy, he calls you for a walk. You follow a step behind, almost bumping into him when he suddenly stops in front of a hat shop.
He buys you a beret, off-handedly saying it makes you look the part.
After that, he goes on and on, buying you canvasses, fine horse-haired paintbrushes, silk ribbons, a thick scarf, anything you ask for and more that you don't. He’s an intelligent enough man to realize that it'd be better to coerce you, not force you, but not an intelligent enough man to realize that asking alone should be enough.
Because—the world is beautiful. Because—you love the world. Because you love. To repeat it so much makes your head hurt. Does the sentiment become false, to have to insist on it?
Your haphazard journey through town ends, with you on a bridge looking at the orange-red-yellow leaves floating in the river and your father not looking at you, awkwardly carrying all of your gifts. It softens his image, and if you hadn’t been prepared on the onset to say yes to whatever he asked, this would do it.
His phrasing is careful when he makes his suggestion—you don't suffocate the goose that lays golden eggs—and you say, “All right.”
Then, in the winter, there is:
The portrait for the actress, the landscape for the gentleman, gardens and children, homes and pets: all the commissions that are starting to slip out of you like flower names used to. The issue isn't that it's happening, the issue is that you don't know why. The issue is in the 'nothing but.'
You stop in the hallway and mother places her hands on your shoulders and squeezes. She smiles, ever so gently, ever so sweetly, and you smile back.
It's a pause in looking at the you looking for something gone.
Saying, this is how I see the world.
Saying, this is how I want to see the world.
Saying, isn't the world beautiful?
Even a beautiful world can have a price affixed onto it.
Even an expression of love can.
Saying something, saying nothing, saying worthless things.
Isn't that art?