by W. E. Gutman
“There can be no higher endorsement of one’s real worth in a world of stunning hypocrisy,” Montvert liked to say in his lectures, “than to invite such antagonism. It’s infinitely more rewarding for an artist to be detested than ignored, to die at the hands of his enemies than to bask in the cold light of public acclaim.”
Orwell's view of freedom -- “the right to tell people what they don't want to know” appealed to him intuitively. But it was the stirring humanism of Victor Hugo and Emile Zola, their preoccupation with the unlearned lessons of history that strengthened Montvert’s decision to startle the smug and the compliant, to challenge the established order, to prophesy chaos and decay as a hedge against their inevitability. Hugo and Zola celebrated the enormous power of passionate, hard-hitting truth-telling. Their prose was poetry. Their polemics were honed to sing and sting and move men to great deeds, and occasionally drive them to infamy, shame and remorse. Montvert, who can sniff traces of insincerity and connivance in the words of politicians and popes alike, would quickly learn that the “truth” is nothing more than the most persuasive of two or more conflicting doctrines, and that the urge by some to exhume it is habitually frustrated by the reflex of others to keep it entombed.
All his mentors were there at his beck and call, lovingly shelved in alphabetical order, ready to impart fresh insights, to titillate, amuse and exhort, astound and stir at every turn of the page. They kept him company when homework was done or postponed as he waited for the girls to climb to his old drafty garret. It was in the sagacity of books, in their wit and nonconformity that he trusted most. And it was in their company that he withdrew long after the girls had left and lust, now assuaged, yielded to more cerebral cravings and to the greater dividends of sleep, alone at last, in his very narrow bed.
He had rearranged the room, pushing the bed against the sloping skylight so he could gaze at his beautiful Paris, like from an aerie, as he made love to nubile maidens with violet-scented lips, sprigs of muguet, lily of the valley, adorning their tangled tresses, and as antimony clouds sailed across lavender skies.
Freckle-faced and deliciously depraved, sixteen-year-old Ginette, the concierge's daughter, had taught him things only a freshly deflowered nymphet will dare. Free of shame or pretense, spurred by precocious sensuality, she had granted him every whim, indulged every caprice. They had performed elaborate acrobatics to the accompaniment of Ravel’s Daphnis and Chloe, contriving to climax simultaneously as the Bacchanale’s joyous finale rose to a rapturous crescendo. Blissfully exhausted, they would then settle back against a large down pillow and read from Guillaume Apollinaire’s erotic novellas, The Adventures of a Young Rakehell and The Debauched Hospodar, parodies of the sizzling French novels circulated in secret in Victorian England. Ginette was especially fond of the well-endowed Romanian nobleman, Prince Mony Bibescu, whose insatiable urges had taken him from the Paris bordellos to the bath-houses of the Orient in a never-ending quest for the ultimate orgasm. Aroused by the prince’s improbable exploits, they would start all over again.
Once a month or so, with Ginette gone for weekend visits to her mémée in Auvergne, it was a fellow student, Isabelle -- “la belle” -- blue-blooded and demure, the niece of a high-ranking member of the French Senate, who looked in on Montvert. Refined, exuding a breeding found only in old money tirelessly replenished, Isabelle had deemed Ravel’s ballet too long. So they had settled for Debussy’s ten-minute transcendental Prélude à l’Après-Midi d’un Faune. Ten minutes was all Isabelle could grant him anyway. His recitations of the most grotesque passages of De Sade’s Justine and Juliette, some redolent of sodomy and scatology, followed by the gyrations and undulations he exacted as she rode astride him at the edge of the bed, often made her nauseous. She once vomited all over him. He never quite felt the same about Isabelle’s patrician little derrière after that. He continued to see her now and then because she shlepped all the way from courtly Le Vésinet to the plebeian escarpments of Montmartre just to get laid. Such servility in a highborn, Montvert felt, could only be rewarded with basic, crude fornication.
He eventually lost both Ginette and Isabelle, the result of an indiscretion with a third p'tite amie, Elyse, whom he had picked up at a magazine kiosk on Place Blanche as he rummaged for his favorite old comics. Elyse liked the accordion. He did too, but over fish and chips and cold fermented cider in a cozy bistro at dusk on the banks of the Marne River, not as an attendant to fucking. So they had each other in silence, lulled by gentle rains or cooing doves perched atop the gargoyles. Of humble birth and uninhibited, like Ginette, Elyse gave her all, anytime, anywhere without the slightest affectation. She giggled a lot. He’d read Rimbaud and Verlaine, and she’d nestle her head in the crook of his shoulder like a kitten and she’d stray, her eyes fixed upon his moving lips, a moistened finger buried between her thighs, her thoughts drifting on the wings of the poets’ magic incantations.
There had been others. Nothing was left of them now but the dim memory of an ephemeral romance.
And then, one day, as he perused an encyclopedia of medieval art, Montvert stumbled on -- no, rediscovered -- a Flemish painter, the same polemicist that had enthralled him as a boy. The experience was to have a profound effect on his artistic proclivities, on his career and on a sequence of events in which he would play a prominent role.
Back in his apartment on Rue la Boêtie, in the fashionable 8th Arrondissement, Montvert lets out a deep sigh of relief. He drops his attaché case on the vestibule floor, next to the Ming planter that now doubles as an umbrella stand, and hangs his raincoat on the cherry-wood portemanteau. He unloosens his tie, crosses a spacious living room festooned with treasures: Chagall, Miró, Magritte, Perahim, Max Ernst, Zadkine and a signed replica of Brancusi’s exquisite Bird in Flight. In the bedroom, he kicks his shoes off, tosses his jacket on the divan and places his watch on the dainty Louis XV gilt-edged cherry wood chest of drawers. He peers for a moment at his beloved Ucello, bought at an auction in Milan. Uccello was a 15th century painter who skillfully tricked the senses, compelling the viewer to mistake illusion for reality. His battle scenes are wholly improbable tangles of horses, riders, lancers, pennants, helmets, and scraps of landscape, with each element fitting elegantly in a perfect abstract geometry. For Montvert, who is fond of metaphor and abhors literalism, abstraction, innuendo and geometry flouted are the essence of artistic activism.
Montvert showers, changes into casual wear, goes down to his corner bistro and orders a double espresso and a croissant. In the paper he reads that a Bush administration memorandum had once asserted that federal funds can subsidize groups that discriminate based on religion and hire only people of a certain faith. He briefly congratulates himself for living in France and proceeds to call Albeniz on his cell phone.
“Manuel?”
“Si.”
“It’s me, Michel. I’m back. I read the letter.”
“Good. What do you think?”
“You were right. It is intriguing. But van den Haag’s clues about the alleged author of the document, while tantalizing, are vague. I’ve come up with several potential candidates, none I’d stake my reputation on -- and that’s assuming van den Haag is telling the truth.”
“I’ve indulged in conjecture too,” Albeniz says, “and I think I know who van den Haag is alluding to. Who do you have in mind?”
“Well, Hans Memling and Gerard David, to start. But Memling was German and David, although an early Flemish painter, was heavily influenced by Memling. He was a disciple, not a forerunner. His themes hardly fit the stylistic radicalism van den Haag describes.”
“I agree. Who else?”
“The great Cranach the Elder, but he too was German and the time frame doesn’t match. Hans Baldung Grün came to mind. His lascivious “Witch and Dragon,” which combines lechery and the grotesque, foreshadows a break with religious themes but, again, he was from Swabia and he resided and worked in Strasbourg. Van Eyck was a Dutchman, but he lived much earlier than our m
ystery challenger. The incomparable Dürer, yet another German, lived later. Giovanni Bellini comes close, but he was Italian and his paintings were influenced by the Venetian School. De’ Barbari’s striking portrait of Fra Luca Pacioli, in which he demonstrates a theorem by Euclid, is filled with what appears to be Masonic symbolism but his method and style, not to mention his nationality, disqualify him as well.”
“Anyone else, Michel?”
“Yes. There’s one last pretender, a remarkable trendsetter I have always admired. It’s a long shot but everything in van den Haag’s cryptic missive seems to point to him. I’m almost certain it’s….”
“Don’t say it,” Albeniz interjects.” Let’s savor what must remain a tempting inference until van den Haag lets the cat out of the bag. Write him and tell him we’re interested. I’ve checked his Masonic affiliations. He’s on the level. I don’t know what this will lead to. But if the author of the document turns out to be who we think he is, if the contents of that document contradict what four hundred years of sheer speculations claim to reveal about the man -- and if we expose what could have been a myth, if not a hoax –- we’ll raise a “santa batahola,” how do you say in French, a “chambard,” a big stink…. “
Montvert smiles broadly. He’s never shied away from controversy. The prospect of raising a big stink in the interest of truth, the integrity of artistic expression and the satisfaction of his own impish iconoclasm fills him with delight.
“De acuerdo, Manuel. I’ll tell van den Haag we’ve agreed to help and ask him to tell us more. I’ll be in touch as soon as I hear from him. Hasta luego, querido hermano.”
“Igualmente.”
Michel Montvert, né Greenberg, the grandson of Romanian Jewish émigrés, is beaming. He’s done the math. If the contentious document was embargoed until five hundred years after the artist’s death -- that is in 2016 -- then the artist must have died in 1516. Both Bellini and De’ Barberi were tempting choices: they died that year. But they were Italian, not Flemish. Only one “notable” painter matches van den Haag’s sketchy intimations, a Master hailed as an “inventor” by his contemporaries and recognized as having had an indelible influence on parody and on modern art, notably Surrealism. And Montvert, an acclaimed expert on the genre, is certain he knows who that inventor is.
Ecce Homo?
The inventor leaves behind a mesmerizing collection of masterpieces. Yet little is known of him. The most inscrutable painter of the 15th century, his bizarre, disquieting renditions elicit volumes of psycho-babble. His legendary creations fascinate, startle, shock and often horrify. Art historians admit they know close to nothing about the man himself. Only dogged efforts to solve the mystery that surrounds him and gritty detective work allow, with wide gaps and missing links along the way, to reconstitute a few key dates and salient details, all of which must be read and plumbed against the religious, social, political and philosophical backdrop that was the artist’s world.
Born with another surname than that by which he is more widely known, he comes into the world in October 1453. He changes his name, adopting the last syllable of his hometown, ‘s-Hertogenbosch. His death in 1516 is recorded in the register of the Brotherhood of Notre Dame, in which he is inducted in 1486. A funeral mass in his memory is held in the famed St. John Cathedral where a menagerie of grotesque ornaments adorns the exterior façade and the choir.
In 1488, also according to the archives of the Brotherhood, he presides over the “Swan’s Banquet,” a ritual said to have inspired his baffling painting, Marriage at Cana, source of much debate about his Masonic identity. That same year he is raised a Master. Scant other facts survive. He marries a “woman of landed gentry,” completes a matrix for stained glass windows in the Brotherhood’s lodge at St. John Cathedral, and dies. His funeral is recorded with laconic detachment. He leaves behind no letters or diaries. Nothing is known about his personality, his thoughts on the meaning of life, his raison d’être as an artist and social satirist. Whatever might have existed is presumed lost or, more characteristically, deliberately destroyed by the artist to ensure privacy or deter the uninitiated from decoding the mysterious clues his life and work could have left behind. Another theory explored by Montvert in a monograph published in the Annals of the Museo del Prado in Madrid suggests that the painter’s most disturbing works were purchased en masse after his death, less out of reverence for his genius than out of fear that they present graphic and damaging allusions about a bloated aristocracy and a corrupt clergy, two self-anointed elites who have made it a career of oppressing and exploiting the masses.
Montvert’s assumptions are greeted with cautious interest by the Spanish art world. Miffed, the Archdiocese of Madrid issues a frosty statement accusing Montvert of engaging in wild conjectures that are unsupported by history.
“Whose ‘history’,” Montvert asks. His question is ignored.
Around 1475, at a time when the artist’s career begins to blossom, painters of the day conform to immutable principles laid out long before them. Their pictures are infused with the solemnity and stiffness of divine service. They retrace Biblical events and are contrived to invite the faithful to humble devotion and mystic exaltation of the soul. The flock is beckoned to higher spirituality but the language, which the flock must grasp without ambiguity, is banal, prosaic. It commands blind obedience to God; it discourages self-scrutiny and condemns profane knowledge. Submit. Kneel. Bow your head. Pray. Believe. Believe or else.
The painter Montvert and Albeniz suspect van den Haag is referring to in his letter is the first to break away from this tradition. With him, art begins to shake off the rigid tutelage of the Church. Outwardly pious, his paintings also point fingers at the clergy’s debauchery and inventive cruelty. Man is no longer God’s finest enterprise but a weak, flawed creature given to extremes of naïveté and ferocity, charity and malice, creativity and nihilism.
Revered or reviled, the “inventor’s” paintings are hard to describe, except for the obvious which, more often than not, conveys obscure or allegorical concepts. Underplayed but ubiquitous, alchemy, magic, the Kabbalah, Scripture, augury and folk humor unite to create strange, sometimes frightening, always other-worldly scenes of trancelike boredom or hysteria. Set against deceptively tranquil backdrops, his triptychs and wood panels erupt in paroxysms of perversion and lunacy. Miscegenated creatures excrete gold, fly in satanic formations to monstrous Sabbaths where they devour unspeakable fare. They retch, pray with trancelike fervor, lust after sexless hybrids, assault and kill and in turn die a thousands deaths skewered by the very wind instruments on which they play their lugubrious tunes. Everywhere, someone inflicts or surrenders to untold abominations with a detachment akin to apathy while fantastic beings, part-animal, part-ghoul, tear at their flesh or render them mad. Somewhere, lost or bewildered, they reach out, clutching at something, sometimes at themselves, as if to shake off some invisible yet intolerable yoke. And they never let go.
The Master’s brush conveys stupefaction, bestiality, innocence and crushing ennui. Through his tormented gaze are reflected all the expressions that betray the madcap ambivalence of the human spirit. Sensuality and eroticism, sometimes veiled, often explicit, saturate his images but there is no passion in the coveting, no humanity in the piety, no fervor in the carnality. Depraved as they seem, his characters inspire pity, not horror. Pervasive, often gratuitous, scenes of widespread violence are offset by the lifeless gaze of both tormentor, who shows no fury and victim, who appears to feel no pain. Their ordeal, gruesome as it is, never seems to convey an explicit level of intolerability. All are dazed, stunned. When one suffers, the great painter tells us as we gape at the numb or snarling expressions of his subjects, it’s just a question of degree. Pain travels but it never goes away.
A late October downpour drenches Paris. The rain turns to swirling tendrils of vapor that rise skyward as soon it reaches the ground. The City of Light, resplendent under azure skies, acquires the kind of glossy murkiness that
gives films noir their tantalizing and ill-omened ambiance. The weather lends an eerie backdrop to the movie Montvert is watching on TV, the dark, caustic Le Silence de la Mer. Based on an anti-German novel secretly published in occupied France, the brooding, sparsely dialogued psychodrama evokes long forgotten childhood memories. He had seen it once before, when he was ten or so, with his parents in a theater in Marseille. And, some of the scenes, he remembers, had stirred recollections of yet earlier events that had marked him forever.
Strewn on the settee is an assortment of letters and packages received in the morning mail. Montvert absent-mindedly sifts through his correspondence. He recognizes a distinctive handwriting and unseals an envelope.
Dear Brother Montvert,
I received your kind letter this morning. Heartened by your encouraging tenor and the interest you share with Dr. Albeniz in this matter, I hasten to reply.
First, to allay some of your misgivings, let me reassure you that my ancestor’s posthumous commentaries are models of clarity. He doesn’t mince words. His feelings and convictions are bluntly articulated. From them can be distilled the crucial premises upon which his works are based: Sin and folly are the universal legacy of mankind; hell-fire through intolerance, greed and war its common destiny. This deeply gloomy perspective, however emblematically conveyed, must not be confused with mysticism, which he rejected, or fire-and-brimstone religiosity, which he abhorred. Contrary to the grandiloquent assertions of scholars who, for lack of evidence or imagination, see him as a docile agent of Christian doctrine, nothing in this astonishingly candid tract (or in his paintings, for that matter) betrays even a shred of personal spiritual conviction. His insights into the human soul are hard-nosed and grounded in experience and observation. As you will note when you peruse the document, his language -- like much of his art -- is laced with irony, anticlerical verve, and spiked with acerbic satire against the Church. He denounces the corruption and hypocrisy of the clergy, the repressive power of the papacy. Craving for truth, longing to expose it, he joins his contemporaries in protest against the abuses, against simony, against bribery, against the commerce of indulgences, against the scorching venality of God’s emissaries.