The Art Exhibit

Written by Maddison Sellers

(Twitter: @maddi_sellers)

“The principle of true art is not to portray, but to evoke.”

―Jerzy Kosinski

It was in the paper, and that is why we went.

On the front page, it read: The Forgotten Impressionists

19th-century art from 1860 to 1910. Rare colorful Impressionist art by forgotten painters whose work was nearly lost to time. The exhibit is on Sunday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on 10th Street.

—

It was early fall. Late enough though that every leaf had changed to a soft amber and rust.

Already they'd begun to scatter themselves upon the earth as the wind swept through the trees bringing with it the familiar autumn chill.

It's days like these I find comfort in. With a stillness, a calmness, that you know something beautiful is always bound to follow.

In my case, it was the art exhibit.

I rose early that morning, earlier than I usually do. Pushing back the heavy quilt and covers, I slipped into my robe and could see the curtains were partly drawn. Outside a misty rain fell, and I knew I would take the umbrella; the black one I always used in the fall; patterns such as these I kept close to me.

Downstairs Simon was making coffee and buttering a piece of soft white bread when he turned to me. "Ah, you’re up," he said, setting a cup of coffee and a plate with bread on the table. "Breakfast, and then we can get ready to go."

I took a sip of the dark coffee, hot and bitter and a stark contrast to the cream-colored mug it was in.

"Thank you," I said, and when he sat beside me, I kissed him on the cheek, and he smiled at me. A smile I'd seen thousands of times. The left corner of his mouth pulled up slightly higher than the right, and his eyes crinkling with happiness.

How I'd seen this face change. From the young man he was, a friend at first, to the man I'd married who'd grown old with me. His brown hair had turned grey as mine had, he'd given up teaching to write a book, and I'd given up sculpting to be an Art History professor; my hands did not move the same as they once did with clay.

So you see, time had moved on along with us, taking our hands and guiding us right where we needed to be. We'd changed, but there is beauty in change. Just as the seasons do with the turning of the years. There had been no resistance as we didn’t feel we needed to. The beginning is just as beautiful as the now.

My thoughts slipped away like rising steam from the cup. So instead, I sipped my coffee and watched Simon read the paper by golden lamplight, the drizzling rain against the window the only sound in our cottage.

We left the house at 9 a.m. as it was only a ten-minute walk to the exhibit.

Outside, cold air pressed against us as we huddled underneath the umbrella, and I linked my arm around Simon's and drew him closer. When we walked, our shoulders touched, and I thought about how warm it felt and how I was happier than I had been in a long time.

Not that I was not happy with Simon or my life. Yet, when something new occurs, and the weather is just right, your heart beats a little faster because it is special; it is special because it is not the everyday. For what your heart has been yearning for has come true, even if you never spoke it aloud.

That was today. It was this walk in the rain on a grey stone path littered with fallen wet leaves and the wind in the trees a gentle whisper; the morning air with that particular scent that when breathed in, cools everything inside you, and what escapes is a sigh of relief.

Not long and we saw the sign for the exhibit when the trees above us parted and, in white painted letters against deep blue, it read: Art for the Lost: Forgotten Impressionists-today only

Inside the old red brick building was warm and clean, with pale walls and polished dark wood floors. It smelled of lavender and had the distinct scent that old things have, perhaps something close to what memories might be like if one could describe them.

On the walls, paintings hung in ornate gold and brown frames, a contrast to the vivid canvases that held bright colors of green and yellow, pink and red. It was as if we had walked into a walled garden frozen in time.

There were not many people this early, just a few aimlessly walking around and others holding themselves still at a piece as they carefully looked it over.

Ready?" Simon asked me, and I nodded my head once to him. Indeed I was. It felt much like a gift to look at this forgotten art, look at the colors and strokes and subjects, and press it all into my mind to form a solid thing I could always hold on to.

Simon pulled me forward, and I listened to our shoes click lightly on the floor as the warm lighting of the room created a glossy look to everything. Where once were crisp edges now became hazy, and the brightness of the world dulled to a softness brilliantly decorated in colors from long ago.

—

The first piece we stopped at was a watercolor, Two Roses, by Zacharie Astruc.

"It's lovely," I mused, "A pity people forgot about it."

"And yet here we are admiring it," Simon said; he had a love for the forgotten things of the world.

"And I do love roses."

"Indeed you do.” He said softly and looked at the painting again. “It's rather like us, do you think? The two of us, the two roses."

"You've always been a romantic," I teased him, and he intertwined our fingers as we moved on.

The next piece I was familiar with. Epinay-Sur-Orge, 1884, oil on canvas by Armand Guillaumin, whose paintings inspired the greats like Pissarro and Cézanne, but have all nearly disappeared as no one seemed to care for his.

"You know this one," he said and smiled at me.

I nodded, pleased at the sight of it. "I like this one; the house has a beautiful warmth to it, the sky in light blue and cream. It's a vibrant contrast to the dark trees, which blur to a dark blue at the edges."

"Perhaps we could look for a print and hang it in the office by the navy chair?" He suggested.

"Ah, I quite agree," I said, with a flash of excitement. "The blue of the painting and the blue of the chair. I can already see our cat there in the late evenings admiring it."

"Curled in her blanket."

"Listening to you read aloud Charles Lamb's Shakespeare," and he let out a little laugh at my words.

"You are very right, my dear." He replied smiling and pulling us to the right as we continued.

—

The next piece we saw was In the Fields Around London, by Giuseppe De Nittis, a date unknown but still included because his life was during this artistic period. His few paintings are mostly lost to time, for it is always a thief, but what was left behind is worth treasuring.

"What do you think?" I asked him and watched as he tilted his head a little to study the red flower fields and the brightness of the umbrella as if to portray the sun casting shadows upon the women and children.

"I think..." and hesitated before he said, "I think his use of color is skillful, and there is a remarkable attention to detail."

I smiled to myself at his attempt of analysis and looked at the faces of the people, a redness to them, a clarity where they felt defined, and yet you could blink, and they would blur all together again in even and small strokes of oil paint.

"I like the shadow of the tree," I said, "you see there," and pointed to the large dark shadow covering them, "I like the contrast of the cool tones there. The woman with a blue hat and a child with a black one." He listened attentively to my words, and I continued, "then the background with richer and warmer tones of bright red and yellow flowers."

"You are as color attentive as he is detail attentive."

"We are artists," I said knowingly, "We must all be obsessive about something, or else we have nothing to hold onto."

"Too true."

"Come on," I said, and again we continued through this labyrinth of fine art. The faint sound the umbrella made as it tapped against the wood followed us and mixed with the hushed voices of the people that went from piece to piece.

I looked carefully at them all now. With their long dark coats, some with raindrops still yet to dry on them. A woman passed me leaving behind the smell of jasmine and clementines. A mother held the hand of a little girl whose bright red shoes looked like drops of red paint when she walked. A young man carried a grey notebook opened to a page with scribbles done in soft pencil. A couple leaned close to one another to speak quietly, heavy in a discussion.

I watched, and as we walked past them all, I felt a pull of the yesterday. How keenly familiar this all was.

"What are you thinking, Mary?" Simon asked me, "You have that look when you are thinking intensely of something."

I knew how easily he could read my face, every emotion was written clearly in my grey eyes, but of course, it was only something he could do. Everyone else never seemed to understand my words or thoughts, not even how my gaze fell.

"Tell me," he probed, and I turned my head a little to the left to look at him.

"You are very nosy. You know that, don't you?" I said, and he shrugged his shoulders a little as if to say he couldn't help himself.

"Besides my nosiness, what were you thinking about?" And I could tell he wouldn't let this go.

I sighed a little before saying, "I was thinking how familiar all this felt to me."

"I see. Well, we do have many memories in art galleries and exhibits."

"Yes, but..." My words trailed off.

"Yes?"

"It's the couple over there," I answered and gestured to the young couple just a little

ahead of us who were looking at a painting of two women sitting in a garden, their blush-colored dresses and purple ribboned hats matching the spring flowers in the background.

"What of them? Do they remind you of us?"

I smiled a little at his words, at how right he was. They did indeed remind me of us.

"Yes," I said quietly, "It reminds me of us when we first met."

"There is a likeness to it," he said warmly, and I watched him study them before he

turned to me and smiled. "We did meet in an art gallery, you know."

"We did, and you were lucky," I said.

"Yes, I was, and even luckier that you had an umbrella."

I smile back at him, at his words, and the memory flashed in my mind.

Simon, standing outside the art gallery I worked at. Rain pouring down, and me gesturing

for him to join me under my black umbrella. The same one hooked over his arm now. The same one we walked under this morning and countless other times. The memory was sweet and delicate, and I felt Simon reach for my hand and tuck it into his pocket.

I looked at them again, the young couple was a little shorter, and they had blond hair, not

brown like ours, and their clothes weren't right either, but when I looked at them, they morphed into the past and became the shadow of Simon and me. It was the same in how the man tilted his head when he spoke, and the woman pointed to the gaze of the painted women turned and looking out from the painting. It was in these little gestures that it felt the same, and I was glad Simon could see the same silhouette as me.

"We are almost to the end now," he mused and looked down at his watch.

Inside I told myself I did not want to leave. I wanted to go back to the beginning of the

day and relive it over again. I wanted to walk beneath a rainy umbrella to this art exhibit, but

I also knew of the intangible feeling this day had and how beautiful it is to know you'll have each

experience once.

"What time is it?" I breathed.

"It's just now 4 o'clock." He said, and I looked back to where the couple stood, but they

were gone now as if they never existed; just as you can never look back and see the past clearly before you, only in brief flashes does it exist.

"Do you want to go home?" I asked him, and he nodded his head just a little, and I

wondered if he wished just as I did. What if we could go back to the start and relive it if we

could? But I didn't ask him. I only walked beside him to the doors and watched as he opened the umbrella, and we stepped outside back into the rain.

The dark evening spread before us as we walked down the same path again. The trees

above swayed in a cold night wind, and the golden light from the lampposts cast our distorted shadows upon the puddles on the ground that rippled as we stepped into them.

We had not gone far when I stopped and turned back to the building, and though no

moonlight shone upon it, it seemed to glitter somehow in the night.

And I thought of how

beautiful it all was, how splendidly beautiful endings such as these are. For tomorrow the art

would be gone and wrapped again in brown paper, and we, we would go on as seamlessly and gently as we always have, as we always would.

About the Author

Maddison Sellers is a reader for the Chestnut Review and the Chariot Press and has an AA degree from Tacoma Community College. She has had one poem published in the college literary and art magazine, Trillium.

You can find her on Twitter at @maddi_sellers