Nostalgia

by Jonathan Buckley

  ‘Now why did you have to do that?’ asks Gideon, who has overheard and comprehended some of Carlo’s nonsense.

  ‘To make their visit a little more interesting,’ says Carlo.

  ‘They had no idea what you were on about,’ says Gideon, nodding in the direction of the couple, who are walking hand in hand towards the Corso; the man shakes his head very slightly, as if taking care not to give offence to the lunatic behind them.

  ‘No harm done, in that case,’ says Carlo.

  ‘You’re a bad man, Mr Pacetti,’ Gideon tells him.

  Carlo takes his arm once more, and they resume their circuit of the town, heading for the Caffè del Corso.

  4.4

  The Carmelite order traces its origins to a loose community of hermits who are said to have dwelt on Mount Carmel, in succession to the prophets of ancient Israel. The written history of the Carmelites, however, begins in the first decade of the thirteenth century, when the hermits of Mount Carmel were given a Rule of Life by Albert Avogadro, the patriarch of Jerusalem. Later in that century, with the Saracen conquest of the Holy Land, the Carmelites moved westward into Europe, where they continued as an order of friars, priests and lay brothers until 1452, when the Second Order, of nuns, was founded by the Prior General, John Soreth. The number of Carmelite convents soon increased rapidly, thanks in large part to the example of the Duchess of Brittany, the Blessed Frances d’Amboise (1427–85), who founded and then withdrew to a convent at Vannes. Before the close of the century new convents had been established in France, Italy and Spain. In 1562, in the wake of the Council of Trent, Saint Teresa of Ávila instituted a reform of the conventual order, and in 1568, with Saint John of the Cross, she founded the first convent of the Discalced Carmelites, in Duruelo. Instituted as an autonomous order in 1593, the Discalced Carmelites lived in accord with the original Rule of St Albert, devoting themselves to silence, solitude, prayer and contemplation. ‘What more do you want, O soul!’ wrote Saint John of the Cross. ‘And what else do you search for outside, when within yourself you possess your riches, delights, satisfactions, fullness and kingdom – your Beloved whom you desire and seek?’

  The Discalced Carmelite convent of Santa Maria dei Carmini in Castelluccio was founded in 1598. The convent was disbanded in 1873, and many of the conventual buildings were demolished or converted to other functions, but the church, a small and plain structure, consecrated in 1607, is still in use. On the façade, a niche above the door is occupied by a statue of Elijah (c.1650), carved by a pupil of Alessandro Algardi. Elijah is honoured as the founder of the Carmelite order, because it was on Mount Carmel that the prophet proved to his people that Yahweh, not Baal, was the true God of Israel, by offering a sacrifice to Yahweh. As related in chapter eighteen of the First Book of Kings: the fire of the Lord fell, and consumed the burnt sacrifice … And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces: and they said, The Lord he is the God; the Lord, he is the God. Elijah is shown brandishing a fiery sword: the sword of the spirit, which is the Word of God (Carmelite Rule no. 19). Below the statue is the Carmelite crest, in which the fiery sword is again prominent, framed by a garland bearing the words Zelo zelatus sum pro Domino Deo exercituum (I am on fire with zeal for the Lord God of hosts [First Book of Kings 19:10]) and twelve stars, representing the Virgin Mary, Mother of God, the woman clothed in the sun, with the moon under her feet and on her head a crown of twelve stars (Apocalypse 12:1). The crown from which the sword rises is a symbol of the Kingdom of God, and the peaked brown shape in the shield beneath the crown is an image of Mount Carmel. The white star in the centre of the mountain represents both Mary and the beginnings of the Order on Mount Carmel, while the brown stars that flank it stand for Elijah and Elisha, and for the expansion of the Order to the west and east.

  Images of Virginity and Humility, by the sculptor of the figure of Elijah, stand to the left and right of the high altar, respectively. The high altarpiece, Our Lady of Mount Carmel with Simon Stock, Angelus of Jerusalem, Mary Magdalene de’Pazzi and Teresa of Ávila, painted in 1664 by Girolamo Bonanno, was removed to Paris some time around 1810; its present whereabouts are unknown. At the foot of the altar steps, a large inscribed stone, decorated with a dolphin above the inscription and a worm-filled skull below, marks the resting place of Jacopo dal Borgo (1570–1647), a benefactor of the church. On the left side of the church hangs an anonymous and badly preserved St John of the Cross at Prayer, which dates from the middle of the seventeenth century; the only other painting of any note, Marco Spinosi’s Vision of Antonia d’Astonac (1761), is to be seen in the sacristy. The doorway to the sacristy is surmounted by a large stucco tableau, The Virgin Presenting the Scapular to St Simon Stock, created in 1753 by the brothers Gianantonio and Giandomenico Colombini.

  4. 5

  Crossing Piazza del Mercato, Gideon sees Claire on the bench by the loggia. She is holding a book open, but her eyes are trained at a spot on the ground. When Trim presents himself to her, she looks up.

  Smiling as if delighted to find her here, Gideon comes over. ‘What are you reading?’ he enquires. She shows him the cover: a biography of John F. Kennedy. ‘Good?’ he asks.

  ‘As far as I can tell. I’m learning things.’

  ‘Well, that’s always good,’ he says.

  A bottle of water stands on the bench; she takes a sip, and closes the book on her lap, keeping her place with a finger.

  ‘What are you going to do today?’ he asks.

  ‘Might give the museum a look.’

  ‘Closed on Sundays,’ he tells her. ‘You’re more than welcome to take my car, if you’d like to get out. Sunday is soporific round here.’

  ‘I can handle soporific.’

  ‘And it’s going to be a boiler,’ he goes on. ‘Hotter than yesterday.’ She nods.

  Trim is sitting at his feet. He ruffles the dog’s ears, and then, looking up as if struck by an idea, he says: ‘Perhaps you’d like to see the studio?’

  With narrowed eyes she gazes across the sun-blanched paving of the piazza. A solitary pigeon is crossing it on foot. ‘I’d like that,’ she answers.

  Misunderstanding, she closes the book and picks up the bottle. Quickly, with a glance at his watch, he clarifies: ‘Some time after twelve? After twelve and before one.’

  She squints at the pigeon, smiling at her error. ‘Sure,’ she answers.

  At ten past twelve she knocks on his door. Without a word he leads her through the living room and up the wooden staircase to the attic studio. It’s a long room, white-walled, with thick beams of rough timber spanning the walls; there’s a window at each end, and half a dozen skylights have been cut into the roof; at the far end, two large tables are piled with paper, tubes, pots, brushes; three easels, each holding a picture, stand directly below skylights; against the walls, dozens of canvases have been propped, most with the painted surface facing inwards; an armchair stands by the nearer window, and there’s a skull on the wall behind it, a large skull with tusks; there’s an old chaise longue too, and a bench beside a wide steel sink, below shelves on which are ranged plastic pots filled with powders, dozens of them, and each a different colour; the air smells of linseed oil and warmed wood.

  ‘Nice. Very nice,’ she says. She glances at Gideon, and is given an approving half-smile, as if she’s passed the first part of a test he’s devised for her. She moves towards the nearest easel; Gideon takes a couple of steps in the same direction, like a security guard in a gallery. She looks up, at a rectangle of blue sky. ‘A beautiful room,’ she says.

  ‘Thank you,’ he says. His smile is transmitting an amused sympathy for her nervousness.

  ‘What’s through there?’ she asks, pointing to a door she’s just noticed, near to the two large tables.

  ‘Robert’s den,’ he answers.

  Clearly, she is expected to pass some comment on the picture that’s on the easel in front of her. It’s in tones of grey, mostly, and what it shows is not quite clear until she’s within a yar
d of it: an array of cogs and other pieces of small machinery, with some fruit, and flowers, and, in the foreground, a dappled green lizard – other than a rose and a fig, the only episode of colour in the picture.

  ‘I have to tell you,’ she says, ‘I don’t know much about art.’

  ‘But you know what you like,’ he adds, and he emits a laugh that’s loud but empty, as if he’s quoting someone else’s laughter.

  ‘Well, yes.’

  ‘So there’s no difficulty. I don’t paint for people who know much about art.’ At this she frowns, uncertain as to whether he’s joking, and whether it’s at her expense. ‘I’m perfectly serious,’ he goes on. ‘Don’t take offence. If you take offence you’ve misunderstood me. Anyone with eyes that function and a mind that isn’t cluttered with prejudices can tell if a painting is true. So simply look, and tell me if what you see gives you pleasure. But not this one – it’s nowhere near being finished. How about that one, over there?’ he suggests, indicating the easel on the other side of the room.

  The second picture represents an expanse of old wall that has a wide opening cut into it, within which, mostly obscured by shadow, a man in blue overalls is bent over the exposed engine of a jet-black car.

  She puts her face close to the canvas, as if her judgement will be decided by the fidelity with which the artist has rendered the texture of the wall. ‘I recognise this place, don’t I?’ she says.

  ‘Quite possibly.’

  ‘It’s outside the town, isn’t it?’

  ‘That’s right,’ he says, in a tone that says: ‘But now tell me what you think.’

  For a few seconds more she examines the painted wall; she looks closely at the figure in the shadows. ‘It’s very realistic,’ she comments.

  He smiles at this, as one might smile at a foreigner who has selected a word that’s not quite the right one.

  She resumes her scrutiny of the details. In the foreground there is a strip of gravelly road, more sketchily painted than the wall. ‘Is it finished?’ she asks.

  ‘Almost.’

  A sprig of weed emerges from a crack in the wall, at the edge of the picture. She is giving this her attention, when her gaze slides off, to hit a drawing which lies on a board, at an angle, on the nearer table. It is an image of a young woman, naked, with her arms extended and raised in a curve, as though supporting a large and invisible ball. ‘May I?’ asks Claire, pointing to the table, now moving towards it.

  ‘Of course,’ says Gideon. He does not follow her; arms folded, he awaits her reaction.

  ‘Who’s this?’ she enquires.

  ‘A model. A figure. It doesn’t matter who she is.’ This is said, it seems, not as a rebuke but as a redirection.

  The young woman is stocky, small-breasted, and has a firm-looking little pod of a belly. The face is as solemn and symmetrical as a statue on a tomb. One thigh is talking more weight than the other, and the muscles of it are thick and smooth. ‘She’s quite something,’ says Claire.

  ‘Do you mean “She’s quite something” or “It’s quite something”?’

  ‘Both, I suppose,’ she says. The areas of shading – in the armpit, under the breast, in the crotch, on the thigh – are webs constructed of hundreds of sharp, light pencil-strokes. ‘Both,’ she states. Now she notices, on the floor, leaning against the wall, a board with a drawing of a nude woman pinned to it; and on the table, on top of a stack of books, there’s another one – a young woman seated on the arm of the chaise longue with her feet on the floor, her head incomplete, her body all pale grey tones except for the triangle of deep black hair.

  ‘Same model?’ she asks, indicating the stack.

  ‘It is.’

  ‘And that one?

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Quite a specimen.’

  ‘Remarkable,’ he agrees. He comes to the table, picks up the drawing from the pile of books, regards it for a few seconds, and hands it to Claire. A minute later, having said nothing, she hands it back. ‘I know what you’re thinking,’ he tells her.

  ‘I doubt it,’ she replies.

  ‘You’re thinking something along the lines of: dirty old man.’

  ‘Actually, I wasn’t.’

  ‘I think you were,’ he insists, with a grin.

  ‘Well, if that’s what you think.’

  He gives her a slightly wounded look, a look that’s intended to winkle out an admission. ‘It’s OK,’ he says. ‘Better artists have had to face that accusation. Do you know how old Ingres was when he painted The Turkish Bath? He was in his eighties. In his eighties, and he was still painting naked ladies. What are we to make of that?’ he asks, cocking an eyebrow. ‘An unquenchable appetite for life? An unquenchable appetite for art, for beauty? Pathological lechery? Which is it?’

  ‘All of the above?’

  ‘Maybe, maybe,’ he says. ‘But let me quote you the words of a great Italian. “The movements of the soul are shown by the movements of the body,” he wrote. So a study of the human figure, if it’s to have validity, must also be a study of the soul, not merely of the flesh. It must be expressive. There must be an idea.’

  ‘OK,’ she says slowly, having noticed another half-dozen nudes in various parts of the room, some stocky, but not all. She nips at her lower lip. ‘And the idea here would be what, exactly? Other than the obvious.’

  ‘The obvious being—?’

  ‘That this girl has a nice face, and doesn’t believe in shaving.’

  Gideon emits a laugh that is like the crack of a thick dry stick; there is no merriment in his eyes. ‘All true, all true,’ he says. ‘But there’s more, I’d say. I hope.’

  She looks at the drawing that’s resting on the floor, at the girl with her arms raised, at the drawing on the book pile, and then, with the demeanour of a woman at an identity parade, at all three once more. ‘Men don’t have souls. Is that the idea?’ she eventually asks.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Well, you said – or your great Italian said – that the body shows the soul, or something like that. But I don’t see anything except women’s bodies. Very nice bodies, but all female. So am I to conclude that only women have souls? Young women in particular.’

  ‘No,’ he says, ‘that’s not what I’m saying.’

  ‘So where are the men? And the older women.’

  ‘There are some men, I assure you.’

  ‘But not as many, I’d guess. Nowhere near as many.’

  ‘That would be true,’ he says. ‘But women are more beautiful.’

  ‘Not to everyone.’

  ‘There are certain proportions, certain shapes, that please the eye. We don’t know why this should be, but that’s how it is. You’ve heard of the Fibonacci Sequence?’

  ‘Not until now.’

  ‘It’s a sequence of numbers: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21 and so on. You see the pattern? Add two succeeding numbers and you get the one that follows. Zero plus one is one; one plus one is two; one plus two is three; and so on. From this sequence you derive the Golden Section and the Golden Spiral. Harmony in music is derived from these numbers, and harmony in art, in architecture. You find Fibonacci numbers all over the place in nature – in the spirals of pine cones, pineapples, seashells. Most daisies have 34, 55 or 89 petals. It’s astonishing how many correspondences there are. I’ll bore you on the subject some other time. The crucial point is: there are rules that govern the forms that give pleasure, rules that we didn’t make up.’

  ‘So you like naked girls because of the maths?’

  ‘The female form is proportioned to please.’

  ‘Up to the age of thirty.’

  ‘Beauty is youth, youth beauty,’ he recites, appearing to find the line immensely witty.

  ‘And what has Fibowhatsit got to do with souls? That’s what it was supposed to be about, wasn’t it? The soul of the pretty girl.’

  ‘Yes. And you asked me where the older women were. So let me show you something. Come on,’ he says, and with a hook of an in
dex finger he commands the doubter to follow him to a cabinet by the staircase. Bending slowly, he opens a drawer and teases from it a large sheet of thick, ragged-edged paper. ‘Behold,’ he announces, ‘the senior Venus.’ The woman in this drawing sits squarely on a chair, face-on, and she is not young: the calves are wide and tubular; the knees are like soft buns, and the thighs overhang the seat of the chair; the breasts, pressed by folded arms, cover much of the torso; thick pleats of flesh encompass the midriff, but the flesh looks hard and its indentations deliberate, as if cut in stone. There is no face: the head consists only of an outline, and a mouth, belligerently set. This woman, says Gideon, had come to hate her own body. ‘Do you know what she said to me once?’ he asks. ‘She said: “I can’t use a mirror any more.” Isn’t that saddening?’ But this was an admirable woman, a beautiful woman, and for years he had wanted to draw her. In the end she’d consented, and she’d been able to see at least something of her beauty on this sheet of paper. ‘She’s a powerful piece of womanhood, don’t you think?’ he asks. He doesn’t wait for an answer. Critics have accused him, he tells her, of idealising people in his work. ‘I take it as a compliment. Of course I idealise. That is the purpose of art, of my art. To elevate. To ennoble, if you like.’ He makes no apology for this. He makes no apology for believing in the importance of the concept of beauty. Nowadays we revere glamour, and glamour is not the same thing as beauty. ‘This,’ he says, brandishing the drawing of the big woman, ‘is a naked portrait, but a portrait suffused with the Ideal. Do you understand what I mean?’