The Passion of Artemisia by Susan Vreeland

Author:Susan Vreeland
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Penguin Group USA, Inc.
Published: 2011-11-30T04:18:14+00:00

Over the next few weeks I learned—and so did Umiliana—that she could hold a pose without a break for hours, including that expression of distress. It was just right for a Mary Magdalene fearful of renouncing everything she had known.

One morning after she saw Pietro leave the house with paint smears on his work clothes, she remarked, “Two painters in one house. Strange.”

“Isn’t there more than one dyer in your house? My father is a painter too. We do what seems natural.”

“Then how does anyone start doing anything different?”

“By being a different sort of person. By not fitting in. By having strong likings all one’s own.”

I worried for a moment what this period of more genteel employment would do to her when she went back to the vats. It might make what she hoped for out of life impossibly far from what she would get, and I would be responsible. And yet, the persistence of hope tapping us on our shoulders is a good thing because it reminds us of the larger picture, and keeps us breathing on our worst days.

“How does someone know which one of you to ask to paint something?” Umiliana asked.

“By looking at our work, I suppose.”

“Where is his?”

I waved my arm at the walls. “Here. All of these are his.”

She looked at them as if for the first time. “Who’s better?”

Palmira’s head popped up at the table.

“Neither of us,” I said.

“Don’t you have fights over who is better?”

Watching us, Palmira let her porridge drip off her spoon.

“No, not fights. Here, let’s get started.”

“How do you know who’s better between any two painters?”

I considered a moment. “Sometimes it’s impossible to tell. Different painters are good at different things.” I looked at a Holy Family that Pietro had done which had been on the wall since the day I arrived. Mary was lovely, with all the sensuousness in her downcast eyes and bare neck that a virgin shouldn’t have. I regretted that it had never moved me. She wasn’t an individual.

“The line between defeat and immortality is sometimes as thin as thread. One never knows how close one stands. A person could be highly talented when viewed alone, but when placed next to brilliance, his work would appear mediocre. It’s all marvelously complicated.”

That was probably more than she needed for an explanation, but I couldn’t resist her curious mind.

In summer Umiliana brought fresh rosemary and marjoram from her mother’s garden. In the fall she brought fresh pecorino that shepherds from the mountains brought down to Giorgio’s cheese shop while it was still soft. In winter, pears, apples, and chestnuts for roasting.

“Not much accomplished today,” Umiliana often said cheerily as she looked at the canvas at the end of the afternoon.

On the last day, I inscribed Optimam Partem Elegit, Latin for “Choose the better way,” on the mirror’s frame in florid gold lettering.

“There you are, as beautiful as Botticelli’s Venus,” I said when we finished.

“Isn’t there something else you have to do to it tomorrow?”

“Only to sign my name.

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