by C W Briar
A sudden burst of applause turned all attention to the podium. Videographers spun their cameras toward Luciano Mideo as he entered and approached the front.
Elizaveta whispered, “I haven’t been this eager for an unveiling in years. I was moved to tears the first time I saw it. We may be witnessing the next Mona Lisa.”
Edward cocked his head. Comparing it to the Mona Lisa? Had everyone lost their sanity?
The applause lessened as Museum Director Franklin Gibbs stepped up to the microphone. After a speech about the MoMA’s legacy of fine art, he introduced Luciano Mideo, an artist young enough to be his grandson. Luciano was wearing a maroon tuxedo and a royal-flush smile.
“Good evening, everyone,” Luciano said. “Thank you for joining me on this special night. I know many of you had the opportunity to witness and love True Reflection while it was in Paris, and I understand your concerns that my alterations may have diminished what was already my finest creation.”
Luciano clutched the curtain’s pull string. “I loved the original, but I could not let the piece remain as it was. There was still too much power and mystery left to explore. People change, so their portraits should as well. Behold, the new True Reflection.”
He parted the curtain. Cameras illuminated the painting with a near-constant stream of flashes, and orchestral music blared from speakers. Audience members gasped, applauded vigorously, or sat frozen in awe.
Edward, however, squinted through his glasses and quietly studied the painting’s changes. All the world’s gone mad. They’re celebrating before they’ve truly looked at it.
The portrait’s colors were bolder than the original’s, and its shadows were deeper and more pronounced. Much of the nondescript background had been replaced by a throng of distant admirers, all of them cheering like thirteen-year-old girls at a concert. Far subtler and yet more intriguing to Edward were the alterations to the figure. It was dressed in a tuxedo identical to the one Luciano wore, and its sneer was even more smug than before.
“My word!” Edward exclaimed when he noticed the orientation of the portrait’s shadows. The image conveyed two sources of light. One was positioned out of view, as usual, but the other emitted from within the figure, as if it had a halo.
He shook his head. The artist had a genuine god-complex. He had given himself a slight, almost imperceptible aureole, as if he were a glowing Christ or Mary from a medieval fresco.
How could the audience, who continued to applaud flamboyantly, not be appalled by the changes? How arrogant could a man be? The image’s colors may have been brighter than before, but its heart was darker. Luciano had tarnished a good piece of art with his self-importance.
Luciano called out Edward. “Mr. Humboldt, I’m pleased to see you here, but you don’t seem pleased by my work.”
The artist stared intently at him.The portrait appeared, upon continued examination, to be doing the same.
The torrent of camera flashes and enthusiastic murmurs died down. Edward tapped the handbill on his thigh. “Well, it’s technically well done.”
The crowd gave a concurring applause.
Luciano tipped up a cold, joyless smile. He extended his hands like a magician showing he had nothing up his sleeves. “Technically well done? Come now, Mr. Humboldt. We’ve all read your articles. You are not a man of few words. Tell us what you think.”
Elizaveta, who had been drying her eyes with a tissue after beholding the new True Reflection, patted Edward on the knee twice. “Yes. Do share.”
Edward glanced once more at the artwork. It seemed nearer to him than before, its eyes narrower and more condescending. Merely disappointed at first, he was rapidly gaining dislike for it. Edward licked his dry lips. He had not felt this nervous about a critique since his earliest reviews, back before he had earned any credibility.
“Perhaps it would be best if I collect my thoughts and express them in writing at a later time.”
Luciano crossed his arms. His smirk was equal parts disbelief and amusement. “The rawest emotions are supreme. If you need to, come closer so you can study it or have your photograph taken with it.
Edward huffed, no longer concerned with being coy toward the arrogant jerk. He stood before the expectant crowd, and cameras turned toward him like hungry rattlesnakes. “Since you’ve asked, I’ll speak my mind. First, the good. It’s unlike anything I’ve seen before. You have a unique mastery of brushstrokes and colors. The painting is nothing if not confidently done, and the subject is a tangible presence.” Edward hated the taste of his own words.
Those seated behind him applauded and cheered. Luciano stepped forward close enough that Edward could smell the alcohol and peppermint on his breath. “And …? You said ‘the good’ first. That implies something is less than ‘good.’”
Edward pointed the playbill at the portrait, but he kept his eyes fixed on Luciano. “To be completely honest, I’m appalled by it.”
Luciano recoiled from the criticism. The audience murmured, then fell silent. Only the music playing over the speakers remained.
As the artist’s pompousness deflated, his expression shriveled into the same solid intensity seen in the previous version of True Reflection.
“How can you—”
“Let me finish. Many of the pieces in this museum are exercises in artistic vanity, but yours is the first that startles me. I can taste, smell, and feel its contempt. The overly thick paint is heavy with the scorn and arrogance of a man who’s not earned his acclaim. The vulgar emotions conveyed by this portrait repulse and worry me. I have no idea why everyone is so enamored with this thing, because I see only an overwrought piece of intermediate art with all the decency of a snuff film.”
Edward had exaggerated his description, but not by much. His dislike for True Reflection continued to grow by the minute. He felt uneasy in its presence, as if the painting hated him back.
As desired, his critique hobbled Luciano’s swagger. The man, who only moments before had been raising his hands and chin to applause, withdrew. He stumbled sideways as if the floor had shifted, and he clutched the microphone stand to keep from falling. The speakers emitted a brief, painful squeal.
“How … dare you …,” Luciano stammered. “You’re confused, old man. You don’t know what to make of great art. You said it’s unlike anything you’ve seen before, that it’s unique, and yet you hate it. That makes no sense.”
“Uniqueness is a meaningless quality anymore. Artists play word games, paring down their work with dozens of descriptions until everything is ‘unique.’”
Luciano tore the microphone from the stand and held it like a knife. “Still, you admitted to its beauty and the visceral feelings you get when you look at it. Other painters would kill for that kind of power in their pieces. The stirring of emotions is what determines good art, no matter if those emotions are repulsion or fear. You don’t understand art at all.”
Twenty years ago, Luciano’s words might have led to a fight, but Edward had matured. Now the insults merely amused him. “Do you know how many times I’ve gotten the ‘you don’t understand art’ speech? Care to guess how many people have proven me wrong and sold their pieces for as much as they hoped? None. So, if you were wise, you would listen when I say there’s a dark heart beneath the surface of this painting, and it disturbs me in a way I cannot justify as an alternative taste.”
For the first time since the unveiling, Luciano faced his portrait rather than the audience. After several seconds, he turned back with a renewed sneer and confident posture. “You’re trying to censor me. That’s what this is. You’re trying to censor my art because you’re jealous.”
Few words were as despised in the world of art as “censoring.” Edward softened his tone. “That’s not what this is about.”
“Yes it is. You don’t like what I have to say, so you’re trying to silence me.” Luciano lifted True Reflection from its mount and carried it closer. Shivers trickled down Edward’s spine.
“Every
one else experiences nothing less than admiration for my masterpiece, but you insult it. Ask them what they think of it.”
The crowd joined the conversation. They began to boo and yell against censorship.
Elizaveta set her notebook aside and peered over the rims of her glasses at Edward. “I’m shocked at you. How can you judge the artist’s message? We’re critics. We should be assessing the method, not the vision.”
“Don’t you see it?” he asked her. Didn’t she see the hideous way the portrait seemed to be glowering over them?
“See what? It’s an exquisite piece, one of the finest in my lifetime.”
That cursed painting was too close, breathing the same air as Edward. He wanted to shove it out of Luciano’s hand and kick it across the floor.
Too close.
Edward began retreating toward the nearest door. Luciano gestured to the audience with his free hand and said, “You’re behind the times, old man. They all love it. Are you going to tell them they’re all wrong and censor them too?”
Edward backed away from the hideous, sneering portrait. What is wrong with that painting, or wrong with me? He protested, “Truth has never been determined by consensus, and the truth is that True Reflection doesn’t deserve to be in this museum.”
The crowd’s boos grew louder, and some of the people shouted insults at him. The mob he could ignore, but the horrible manner in which the painting stared at him—
His eyesight began to darken at the corners, and his throat tightened. “What is that thing?” Edward shouted. He tripped over a camera’s tripod leg and fell against the wall. His heart raced painfully. “Luciano, what have you created?”
“My masterpiece,” Luciano answered smugly. His pupils dilated, and he curled his lip into the same malevolent grin as the portrait. “Why do you insist on denying how incredible it is?”
Edward fled from the room and escaped through the museum’s front doors.
***
For the next eighteen months, Luciano lived a life he never could have imagined. True Reflection became the obsession of the art world and a media fixation. He rode the tidal wave of fame on a world tour, displaying the piece in museums and galleries from Hong Kong to Berlin, and always to large crowds.
The perks of fame followed Luciano like a band of infatuated groupies. Talk shows begged him to appear as a guest, and screenwriters pitched ideas for art heist movies involving his masterpiece. Every week, he received invitations to new gallery exhibits and film premieres. He also discovered no shortage of young, beautiful women interested in spending a night with “The Michelangelo of the Twenty-First Century.” Drugs became as easy to acquire as coffee.
Eventually, the pleasures staled. When the highs plateaued, Luciano became unsatisfied with his painting. To the shock of millions, he withdrew his work from the public with the promise to reinvent and improve the masterpiece yet again. And then again.
With each new unveiling, the public’s adoration soared to new heights. The old versions of the painting, once public treasures, became footnotes of the new and present wonder. The visage’s inner glow brightened, and the accumulating layers of paint caused the face to project from the canvas. The darkening eyes became a focal point to the admiring crowds. Those who stood entranced by the portrait for hours said it was the Charybdian gaze that drew them in the most.
The background, which increased in complexity and number of admirers, proved a surprising tendency for prescience. Onto the sides of the canvas, he added things he had long dreamed of owning, such as an Italian villa and a sports car. Within days he acquired them, not by spending the fortune he was accumulating, but as gifts. True Reflection predicted every good thing coming to him.
Luciano basked in the fame and adoration. He possessed the map to every conceivable desire. As long as he followed the portrait’s lead and poured himself into it, nothing was unobtainable.
***
Edward’s outburst at the True Reflection unveiling cracked the foundation of his reputation. He carried on with his work, but publications shunned him, and requests for his critiques reduced by half. Many of his oldest friends and clients became detached acquaintances.
At least his wife stayed faithfully and lovingly by his side. While Edward struggled with his sinking position in the field he loved, Tiffany remained a steadfast refuge from the heartache. She encouraged him to get back into creating art as a hiatus from judging it. Her plan worked. It renewed his passion for the simple wonder of painting.
The incident with Luciano continued to haunt him a year and a half after it had transpired. Regrets for having made the critique personal lingered in the back of his mind, occasionally interrupting his thoughts and dreams. It was unlike him to have attacked an artist’s reputation the way he had.
Something had set him off. Whenever he reflected on the portrait, the sensations of fear and revulsion smoldered anew. On multiple nights, the emotions regurgitated nightmares that roused him from sleep in a cold sweat. He initially tried to explain his reaction away as an intense form of regret or stress. But doubts remained. Edward had never been superstitious, yet he could not shake the thought that the picture was unnatural in some way. Supernatural even.
It couldn’t possess some otherworldly power, could it?
Edward shook his head, trying to rid his mind of the thought. He was in his office, painting an ocean scene on canvas. He blended more indigo into the gray at the bottom.
Someone leaned on his shoulder and kissed the top of his head. He looked up, expecting to see his wife. Instead, his eyes met those of his daughter, Faith. She was a mirror image of her mother from thirty years ago, but she shared his interests. She was majoring in art at the Rhode Island School of Design, his alma mater.
“Hi, darling,” he said. “When did you arrive?”
“Just now. Did you have any idea I was coming home?”
“None.” College summer break was still a month away.
“Good,” she said. “I told mom I’d be visiting this weekend, but I asked her to keep it a secret.”
“It’s certainly a pleasant one.”
Faith peeked inside his box of art supplies, then pointed at the colliding swathes of gray and blue on his canvas. “I’m glad to see you’re painting again. What are you working on?”
“An ocean landscape. To be honest, I’m not sure where I’m going with it yet.”
“I’m sure it’ll be beautiful in the end.” She smiled, then bit the right side of her lower lip.
Edward had seen that look a hundred times before. She had something she wanted to say. “Out with it. Is there something bothering you?”
Faith pulled a folded piece of paper from her jacket pocket and handed it to him. “Would you consider going to this, please? For our sake, and for yours.”
He opened the printout and read the advertisement aloud. “Returning to New York: Mideo’s True Reflection.” Edward tensed his grip, causing the paper to bend. The hairs on his neck stood upright, and his lungs felt lacking for air. “I don’t think that would be wise.”
His daughter clasped her hands together. “Please? You don’t have to compliment him. Just apologize, and maybe this whole situation will stop festering. You can get more work, or at least make the nightmares stop.”
“How many times has he redone that thing?” Edward grumbled. “Four or five?”
Faith crossed her arms and stared at him with her wide, adorable eyes. Even at nineteen, she could coax him with a mere pout.
“I still can’t believe what a spectacle people are making of this thing.” Edward sighed. “I’ll consider it.”
She briefly bit her lip again, then hugged him and confessed, “Good, because I already called your agent and mentioned the idea to her.”
Edward smirked. “You little sneak. You’ve learned too much from your mother.” He lightly poked her ribs with the handle of his paint brush. “To make up for going behind my back, why don’t you help me with this landscape?”
>
“I’d love to,” she said, picking up a second brush.
***
Fifty-Third Street outside the Museum of Modern Art was a circus of limousines, red carpets, and A-list personalities. Every major news outlet was covering the event. Edward weaved his way through the chaos and cameras, trying to get into the museum with as little attention as possible. One reporter recognized him and asked if he planned to harass Luciano Mideo again. Edward flashed his two-thousand-dollar ticket, which his agent had gifted to him, and slipped through the gate without answering the man’s questions.
The gala, complete with champagne, tuxedos, and undersized dresses, was the kind of ego-waving event he loathed. As far as he could tell, most of the people there cared more about being seen around the museum’s collection than for the collection itself. They pointed at pieces and spoke of them like so many freshman art majors, with juvenile concepts of artistry and originality.
He overheard two women discussing a display comprised of an iron paperweight atop a stack of crushed cardboard boxes.
“The piece is a delightful contrast of simplicity and monotony,” the taller woman cooed. “It’s self-gratifying and yet self-loathing. The medium naturally lends itself to critiquing the oppression of the greedy over the poor.” She then sipped from a fifty-dollar glass of champagne, and Edward groaned.
A man with an Italian accent whispered into his ear, “I’m not sure if I should give her a dictionary or an art history book. She could use both.”
Edward chuckled. He turned to greet whoever made the joke, but his laughter fell to the floor at the sight of him. Luciano was standing beside him, dressed in a flawlessly fitted tuxedo. He held a champagne glass of his own in one hand and a thin, gorgeous woman in the other.
Luciano flashed a bright grin. His joy seemed genuine. “Mr. Humboldt, I had no idea you would be attending. This is the finest surprise of the night.”