The Masterpiece

by Fiona Davis

  Eventually, he approached one of the easels and gently lifted the dustcloth from it. “I’d like you to see this, Miss Darden.”

  She waved one hand at him. “Please, call me Clara.”

  He gave her a solemn nod and stepped back, offering her the prime spot in front of it.

  She’d expected another wild, Picasso-like flight of fancy, not a portrait. Two figures looked out from the canvas, a boy holding something in one hand, standing beside a seated woman whose gaze was as dark as death. A boy and his mother. The boy had a dark mess of hair and the same pointed widow’s peak as Levon’s. He wore a yellow overcoat and a funny set of slipper-like shoes, his feet turned slightly away, as if he hoped to escape as soon as possible.

  The woman, though, was solid, unmoving, going nowhere. Her hands rested on her knees but appeared unfinished, as if she were wearing mittens. The lack of detail existed only from the neck down, however, as her face had been drawn in with an elegant line from eyebrow to nose, heavily lidded eyes, encircled by an ocean-blue headscarf.

  The boy, unsure and self-conscious, was turned in on himself, while the woman’s energy was directed outward at the viewer: accusatory yet hopeful.

  “This is you and your mother?”

  He nodded.

  “It’s beautiful, heartbreaking, Levon. Why didn’t you show this tonight?”

  He pulled the cloth back over it. “It’s not finished.”

  On a table nearby, she spotted a photograph. “Is that what you’re working from?”

  He snatched it up and stared hard at it for a couple of seconds before reluctantly passing it over. Clara held it carefully at the very edges. The same figures, but filled with details. The woman’s hands had thick, working-class fingers. The boy held a small bouquet of flowers. The boy looked more certain and the woman less so. “Tell me the story behind this.”

  Levon prowled away from her, then back. “My father was a cobbler; he came to the United States from the shores of Lake Van, in Turkish Armenia. He was going to send for my mother, sister, and me once he was settled. While we waited, my mother had this photo taken in the hopes that he wouldn’t forget us.”

  “Why wasn’t your sister in the photograph?”

  “Girls were not as important. I was the boy, his son. My mother hoped it would remind him of his duties.”

  “I see.”

  “But before we could send it to him, we were forced out by the threat of a civil war, and headed east. My sister wore boy’s clothes, for safety’s sake, and together we made it to a city called Yerevan, where we lived in an abandoned building. If it rained we got wet, and we tried to make do, but it was very difficult to find food.” As he spoke, he circled the entire room several times. Clara stayed still as he grew more and more agitated.

  “My mother became ill, and one day she died. She’d given all her food to us, and we’d eaten it. Taken her life. We were selfish.”

  The day’s complaints and petty jealousies fell away. “She would have wanted to feed you first. Any mother would have. When did you come to the States?”

  “Soon after. As orphans, we were bumped up to the top of the list. We lived with relatives in Providence, and I never did find my father. Never cared to. Our relatives said he’d taken up with another woman and moved away. I drew, went to art school there, and then came here. I studied at the Grand Central School of Art and became a teacher within months.”

  The return of his bravado cheered Clara. “Of course you did. This painting is remarkable. You must continue.”

  “You must as well.”

  “How can you say that, when you’ve never even seen my work?”

  “I can see in you that you are like me. Strong. I must give you my advice, though.”

  “Okay.”

  “Get out more. Don’t sit in your studio all day; it’s not good for the soul. Also, don’t let your students come first. Your work comes first, always.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  “And when you come to my class, don’t worry if you don’t do very well. These students, my students, are trained by the very best. Me.”

  And the pomposity was back with a vengeance. “I’ll see you tomorrow at ten.”

  As she left, she saw him reach for the mop leaning against the wall. His voice, singing some kind of folk song in a foreign tongue, rang down the stairwell. She imagined him mopping away their footprints, scrubbing away his sad tale, well into the night.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  April 1928

  Clara walked into Levon’s studio at the Grand Central School of Art ten minutes early. She’d woken with a burst of nervous energy and wanted to get this ridiculous bet over with. If she was going to make a fool of herself in a roomful of his students, so be it. She’d torture him in her own class. Although, looking around the studio, she saw that her humiliation would take place in front of four times as many onlookers.

  Levon’s class was held in one of the biggest studios in the school, a testament to his popularity. A couple of dozen easels encircled the model’s platform in the middle of the room. Nadine, as class monitor, directed Clara to an easel in the front row, with a scowl.

  “Levon wants you here.”

  Clara shrugged off the girl’s rudeness and busied herself with organizing her brushes and paint. She’d loved everything about being in a studio ever since she’d attended her first art class several years earlier. The sharp tang of turpentine, the oily residue of paint on a palette, and even the scuffed-up floors awed her. You never knew what might come to pass after four hours of diligent concentration: a work of art, or a canvas to be scraped and reused for next time?

  Soon after her family had fled to Tucson, she read about a new art school in the newspaper. Located in an abandoned factory just outside of town, where every summer, monsoon rains pounded the shellacked earth, the school attracted a fair bit of notice and Clara begged her father for permission to go. She’d filled notebooks with silly doodlings as a young girl, and later, when the family’s fortunes fell, the act of drawing had become an escape of sorts. Her father allowed her to go to one class—that was all they could afford—but the director, Miss Alice, recognized her talent and allowed her to come back whenever she liked. Miss Alice taught her to be quiet for a moment before putting brush or pencil to paper, to wait and listen to the voice in her head before beginning. Once Clara discovered her passion for art, there was no going back. She was determined to make it her career, her life.

  Levon entered in a rush, shouting out for Nadine. She leaped forward and took his coat, hanging it on the rack near the door. Levon looked about. “Where’s our model? Not here yet? Well, let’s not fret about that.”

  Levon stopped in front of Clara, blinked a couple of times, and moved on. She was relieved he didn’t call attention to her. Being parked in the front of the room was bad enough.

  For five minutes, Levon spoke in a torrent of ideas, touching upon the best works to view in the Met and Gallatin’s Gallery of Living Art, of Cézanne, Picasso, and Braque. He called on students to offer their opinions before shredding them to pieces. What had she been thinking? This was no painting class; it was a cult.

  The students appeared to enjoy the show. Several tried to offer counterpoints, and Levon prodded them into expanding on their ideas before shooting them down, always with a smile on his face.

  The door opened, and the robed model walked in.

  Usually, the men and women who got paid to pose were on the far side of desperate. Washed-up dancers or actors, with folds of flesh that spoke of indulgence or limbs bony with age. Last year, as a student at the school, Clara had quickly gotten over the shock of a nude man or woman posing for class. The challenge of capturing a sagging breast or rounded buttock on paper or canvas quickly overtook the embarrassment of gawking at a naked human being.

  But this wasn’t a down-on-his-luck str
anger. It was Oliver, the poet from the restaurant.

  As Oliver’s robe fell to the floor and he stepped onto the platform, a collective hush fell around the room. Every line of his body, the one that ran above his hip, the one that differentiated the long muscles of his thigh, resembled those of the antique casts that stared down at them from the studio’s shelves.

  She caught Levon watching her and looked at her canvas, unsure of where to begin, overwhelmed.

  She wasn’t the only one. A couple of the women gaped openly, which made her smile. Back to the work at hand. She had a bet to win, and she wasn’t about to let a swell-looking fellow throw her off-balance.

  “Don’t be bound by what you see,” said Levon. He came to a stop beside Oliver, who stood with his arms crossed, as if waiting for a bus. Levon whispered something, and he struck a pose, shifting his weight on the left leg, a hand on his hip, his eyes looking up and out.

  Levon nodded and addressed the class. “I want you to sketch what you feel.”

  Clara had to bite her cheek to keep from smiling at the vagueness of his words, so typical of pompous art teachers. Imagine if she said such a thing to her illustration class? They’d have looked at her as if she had two heads. All around her, the students dove in, knowing that time was limited and eager to please their master. As they worked, Levon drifted from easel to easel. He stared for a long time at the canvas of a young woman at the end of Clara’s row. “You’re trying to be clever again, and I don’t want that. I must break you of that habit. For the next class, when we turn to oils, I want you to use a large brush for the details and the small brush for the fill.”

  He moved down another easel, to a young man whose hand was wildly moving about the paper. Levon took the pencil from him. “Permit me.”

  Clara stifled a gasp as he drew over the student’s work. His arrogance astounded her.

  She sharpened her pencil, the sound like a low rumble in the quiet room, and immediately regretted calling attention to herself. Levon was getting closer. He looked over and flashed a big smile her way, stuck his thumb up in the air like a clown. She should never have agreed to this—she’d placed herself at a disadvantage, and by failing here, she’d further erode what was left of her standing in the school.

  Clara looked at her own blank canvas, then back up at the model, only to discover he was looking right at her. She was the only one not doing anything, frozen in place. He winked at her, and, reflexively, she smiled back.

  Levon shouted at a skinny boy to her right. “No, no! You have to consider the negative space. Stupid, stupid.” He was closing in.

  One thing was certain: If he dared to draw on her canvas, she’d pick it up and smash it over his head.

  Clara remembered her father, who’d taken to belittling Clara and her mother once his fortunes fell, as if their reduced circumstances were their fault. He went out very little, other than to his menial job at a hospital, while Clara’s mother took over all the tasks the servants had done in Phoenix, cooking and cleaning and polishing his shoes. Clara watched with horror and revulsion as her mother kowtowed to his every need, doing whatever it took to defuse his foul moods, often making them worse in the process.

  Levon was similar in temperament: his impetuousness, the cavalier disregard for everyone around him, his certainty in his own talents. She had to put him straight, let him know that she was not to be bullied. No doubt, if she didn’t do well under this ridiculous test, he’d lose interest in her. For some strange reason, the thought annoyed her even more.

  She took a deep breath, reminding herself that she was a teacher, not a frightened pupil. When one of her own students seemed stuck, she’d tell them to stop believing that everything they did was precious. If you want to make a living at it, she’d say, you must sit at the drawing board, brush in hand, and simply do it.

  She put the pencil to the paper and began sketching out the proportions, the same as she would approach a Wanamaker drawing. The boy was so angelic, the line of his limbs so much the ideal, that before she knew it, the figure on the canvas was almost completed. What a relief not to worry about the correct drape of a coat, or the texture of a pair of pants. This was simply skin, bones, and musculature.

  Once she was satisfied with the outline, she picked up the palette and began experimenting with the oils. While watercolors were her favorite medium, oils came in a close second. She’d stepped in as a teacher for Miss Alice every so often after a couple of years of study, and she relished the challenge, switching from oils to watercolors to etching. She gave all her earnings to her father, which only seemed to make matters worse, adding to his humiliation.

  When she showed up at art class with a bruised wrist after one of their arguments, Miss Alice insisted she apply for a scholarship at the Grand Central School of Art in New York City. Together, they selected her best work and sent it off in the post. The letter of acceptance arrived a month later. It was for only one term—after that, she’d be on her own—but Clara jumped at the chance. Her father had railed at her for trying to sneak away, but she was certain he was secretly pleased to get rid of her. Her mother was openly relieved, as it meant one less person to provoke him.

  “You’ll never make it there,” he said over her last dinner at home, a measly meal of stringy, overcooked chicken and some kind of mashed vegetables. Her mother knew she couldn’t compete with the lavish dinners of their former cook, and she didn’t bother to try.

  “Why shouldn’t I?”

  “Because you’re a girl and you’re a dilettante. That city will devour you.”

  She’d arrived in New York on a bright September day, still reeling from the train trip, where she’d learned to carry a book whenever she got up from her seat, the better to fend off the advances of male passengers who took advantage of any sudden lurch for a quick grope. A hard bonk ensured they behaved better the next time they passed each other in the aisle. Grateful to finally be discharged from the claustrophobic train cars, she’d found her way to the door of a small apartment building on East Tenth Street that leased rooms only to women. The landlord had shown her to the top floor, her very own studio, and Clara almost danced with joy. She began her illustration class the next day with Mr. Wendle, who was kind but bland. She learned later he was ill, which explained his hacking cough and lack of enthusiasm: For the first three weeks, he insisted the entire class draw shoes. Over and over. Mary Janes, oxfords, satin slippers, and mules, followed by men’s leather dress shoes. At night Clara dreamed of soles and laces. She did as she was told and was made monitor of the class, which made the other students jealous, but she didn’t care.

  Armed with her drawings and desperate for rent money, Clara made the rounds of the magazines and big department stores, and Wanamaker had immediately assigned her to do an advertisement for children’s shoes. Unlike the other, less ambitious students, the ones who were unsure of their work and required Mr. Wendle’s constant hand-holding, Clara had one goal: to make money off her art and prove her father wrong.

  As the fall wore on, New York grew colder and wetter. The tree outside her apartment scraped its stripped branches against the dull stone walls. Christmas Day she spent alone in her studio drawing gloves, a step up from footwear, or so the advertising executive told her, and made just enough to pay for the next semester’s classes. In January, when Mr. Wendle didn’t show up to class, she offered to fill in, citing her experience in Arizona and her commissions from Wanamaker. Mr. Lorette had hesitated before agreeing that, for now, she might serve as a substitute. No doubt her lower salary had also factored into his decision.

  It had all seemed so easy at the time. But her hope had faded fast. She’d plateaued early and hadn’t been able to move up since. No increase in commissions, possibly no class to teach next term, and no fashion magazine cover.

  A shuffling sound brought Clara back to earth, back to where she stood in front of an easel at the Grand Centra
l School of Art, her painting finished. She turned around to see the entire class clustered behind her, Levon at the fore, his arms crossed. She had no idea how long they’d all been standing there.

  But she knew from the way his eyes traveled over her painting, from the right shoulder to the detail of the left foot and back up, that she’d more than held her own.

  * * *

  The assignment in Levon’s class freed Clara from her recent gloom. She couldn’t explain it, other than she’d regained a touch of confidence that her time in New York had steadily eroded. Her brashness had gotten her through doors, but beneath it all had been a desperation to succeed at all costs, and pushing that hard had caused her to stall, just like her father’s decrepit Model T used to do. He’d kick the tires and curse while she waited inside, cocooned in the tufted leather seat.

  Levon’s assignment had forced her to dig deep back into her creative well and do something unusual: Draw for the sake of beauty. It wasn’t about accurately capturing the curve of a leather T-strap but the curve from waist to hip, the simple beauty of the human form. In any event, the few hours in Levon’s class had offered her a reprieve from her impending financial doom.

  In front of his students, Levon had pointed out how she’d captured the model’s character, not just his construction. “Do you see the romance, the spirit, the fine truth?” They’d all nodded, as Clara stood by, squashing any outward sign of satisfaction. At the end of class, she’d hovered, hoping to thank Levon for his graciousness, but he’d been corralled by a student in the far corner, and she’d left without a word. Oliver had dashed the moment the students had been told to put down their brushes. Thank God, for she didn’t think she’d be able to look him in the eyes without blushing.