The Perfect Landscape

by Ragna Sigurðardóttir

  Hanna gently puts her hand on Steinn’s arm to stop him because she cannot make out what she is looking at on the screen.

  “Steinn,” she says slowly to calm him down as he is the excited one this time, unlike before when it was she who struggled to slow down to his tempo. “Can you just explain to me what we’re looking at? What does this X-ray show? I didn’t even know it was possible to take an X-ray of a painting at a hospital. So what are we seeing?”

  Steinn looks at her, smiling; he is quite simply happy. He’s in his element now, she thinks to herself.

  “An X-ray is just an X-ray, no matter what it’s of. You know that artists’ paints, oil paints, always contain small amounts of heavy metals. And these metals are visible on an X-ray—that’s why we can see these shapes so clearly here. OK, only black on white, or maybe white on black. The metals show up white on the X-ray.”

  Hanna looks at the black-and-white image on the screen, dark and light patches, but she doesn’t see what he sees. To help her Steinn takes hold of the mouse and moves the cursor over the lines and shapes on the screen. After a while Hanna can make out half of the half-moon shape from the image.

  “It’s like the shapes you get in rock formations,” she says. “Once you’ve seen a shape in a rock formation that’s the way you always see it.” And now she can also make out the diagonal stroke that breaks up the half-moon shape. Mentally rotating the image onto its side she is finally able to tell Steinn what she saw when he was lying unconscious on the floor and Composition in Blue was propped up against the wall directly in her line of vision.

  “I didn’t think it through then, but I’m absolutely one hundred percent certain that the paintings are exactly the same. I mean totally the same—d’you get what I’m saying? Not as if Sigfus had done a number of paintings with the same motif but with some variations, but like he’d simply painted two paintings that are identical. Don’t you think that’s strange? I don’t get it. I’ve looked at many of Sigfus’s paintings and read all the books there are about him, examined the data the gallery has and everything, but I’ve never come across two identical paintings.”

  Hanna doesn’t voice what she is thinking; she doesn’t need to. It has, of course, occurred to her that the gallery has not only been given a forgery attributed to Gudrun Johannsdottir, which The Birches almost certainly is, but also it could be that Composition in Blue, which the gallery was given the year before with so much jubilation, is a forgery. She doesn’t mention it because it was Steinn who examined the painting at the time. He made a serious oversight and it is unnecessary to spell it out. Steinn makes no response.

  “Turn it on its side a moment,” Hanna asks, and Steinn rotates the image on the screen. He also brings up the other X-ray, rotates it, and puts them side by side. Finally he goes into the gallery’s database and brings up a picture of Composition in Blue on the screen as well. He changes the settings on the image of the painting so it appears in black-and-white. Hanna follows his movements in silence. The similarity between the lines and shapes on the images is not only great; the structure is almost identical. Hanna looks at Steinn in triumph, but he just stares at the screen mumbling.

  “Yep, this is what I suspected. I was thinking about this half-moon shape; Sigfus painted this a lot at the time.”

  “I’ve worked out what might have happened,” says Hanna. She can’t wait any longer. “Well, not who painted The Birches, but I realize that in fact it could be that Composition in Blue turned into The Birches when it was in Christian Holst’s possession. When his estate released this painting it was in the same condition as it is now. I had the auction house send me a photograph. The picture fits exactly, but on their list the painter was down as unknown and the value was a mere fraction of the eight million Elisabet paid for it.”

  “That doesn’t explain why the painting was changed, the trees, and the mountain? Did that also happen in Holst’s time?” asks Steinn, but Hanna carries on without answering him.

  “Holst bought up Elisabeth Hansen’s entire collection. And I’m dead certain she bought a painting from Sigfus. I came across something when I was going through the records about Gudrun in the archives. They were friends, as you know, Sigfus and Gudrun.”

  “Surely you’re not going to tell me that Gudrun painted over one of Sigfus’s pictures?” Steinn asks, surprised and in disbelief.

  “No, of course not,” replies Hanna. “I still don’t know who painted over the picture or altered it later. At the moment I’m only talking about how a painting by Sigfus could have got into Holst’s possession.”

  Hanna reaches across for the large book lying on the table.

  “First I found a letter in Gudrun’s records, and then I started looking in books for pictures of Sigfus’s from this period, until 1940. I also photocopied the letter Gudrun wrote; you must let me read it to you.”

  Crossing his arms, Steinn nods his head, waiting.

  “Here’s the letter,” Hanna says. “Gudrun wrote it to her friend Mundi when he was in Italy. Just before he died. I find it so sad to think that they never met again. ‘Copenhagen, October 15, 1938. My dear friend, The ladies in Nansens Street and I have been rather downcast since you, my dear friend, set off on your southern travels. The accordion lies untouched in the corner, and in your absence few make their way over here. I do hope that you recover soon, so that we may all sing together again, very shortly.

  “‘By the way, I went to an interesting party yesterday evening. Our friend, Sigfus, took me to a midweek soiree at Mrs. Hansen’s; it is she who has purchased the many abstract paintings. At these soirees, selected artists are offered a free meal every Wednesday. Sigfus was invited on this occasion because Mrs. H assuredly wanted to buy a painting from him. She had seen it at an exhibition of abstract paintings where Sigfus was involved last summer—when we had our exhibition at home.

  “‘He was pleased to take me with him, but as you know, it is not anybody who is invited to Mrs. H’s house, and she viewed me with displeasure even though dear Sigfus introduced me with enthusiasm. I was ready to walk straight back out, but he took me firmly by the arm.

  “‘Mrs. H is a queer one; you, my dear Mundi, could easily capture her expression—and her hair color, I wonder which chemist’s shop that comes from? All the abstract painters you have heard about were there—Egill Jacobsen, of course, Ejler Bille and Carl-Henning Pedersen and others. And their paintings were displayed on every wall; her apartment is absolutely crammed with these paintings, full of animals, masks, and symbols. She didn’t open the package with Sigfus’s painting, just slipped it into the back room. Maybe she didn’t want the others to know that she was buying from Sigfus; they are all as penniless as each other and all want to sell her their pictures. You should have seen how well we ate.

  “‘I don’t always understand what their paintings mean, but abstract art fascinates me, although I don’t have the courage for it yet. Some of the paintings are very memorable. When I look at my own landscape paintings, I see very little to recommend them. But that is what I’m doing at present, and we will see what the future holds. Sigfus was not bashful about the company. And they had plenty to talk about; I had to keep my wits about me to keep up because many of them spoke at once, largely about the possibility of war of course.’”

  Hanna stops reading and hands Steinn the photocopy. She dries her eyes.

  “They were such good friends and colleagues. Gudrun and Mundi, I mean.”

  “So you mean the butcher got Sigfus’s painting included in the deal when he bought up Elisabeth Hansen’s collection?” Steinn is pensive. “But why did it not turn up—oh no, of course. Someone painted over it. But who could that have been? When the painting was in his possession?” He shakes his head. “At any rate, Gudrun didn’t do it.”

  “I think we can stop worrying about Gudrun,” says Hanna. “She clearly isn’t in any way linked to this. The question is what painting lies underneath. It’s highly likely that it’s by Sigfus.
You can see that these paintings are almost identical,” she says, looking at the screen.

  “I saw a sketch of Composition in Blue at an exhibition in Copenhagen about two years ago,” she adds. “There were also paintings by Gudrun. I was working on the exhibition with the Cultural Institute in Copenhagen and went to visit it. And the paintings by Sigfus from this period, around 1940, were very much in that style. Composition in Blue hadn’t been found then, d’you remember? It was found with some people in Denmark a number of months later, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes, it was some family or other who owned the painting,” replies Steinn. “It never emerged who bought it and donated it to the Icelandic state. Maybe it was only publicized over there—that could be. It was known that he did a painting from these sketches and called it Composition in Blue.”

  Hanna gives him a meaningful look. Opening her book about the CoBrA painters she’d brought with her, she shows Steinn a small black-and-white picture.

  “Look at this!” she says triumphantly.

  Steinn looks at the picture. Then he takes the book over to his big workbench, and, laying it down, he reaches out for the magnifying lamp. Shining it onto the picture, he pores over the book. Then he straightens up, rubbing his good eye.

  “Yes, I see what you mean.”

  Hanna goes over to the table and he hands her the magnifying glass; she examines the picture more carefully. It shows Sigfus Gunnarsson as a young man, Egill Jacobsen, and two other painters at a fine arts exhibition in a small gallery in Copenhagen in 1938. Egill later went on to become one of the CoBrA artists, and this was one of the first exhibitions he took part in. Various paintings are visible in the background; one of them is just like Composition in Blue.

  Hanna and Steinn look at each other. There can be no doubt. It is extremely likely that the painting Elisabeth Hansen saw at the exhibition in 1938 and then bought from Sigfus was indeed the painting that looks remarkably like Composition in Blue. The date fits at any rate.

  “Hold on a moment; this isn’t all,” says Hanna. “The butcher donated the majority of the collection he bought from Elisabeth to a museum on Jutland. The museum has a register of all the paintings that came from him. I got in touch with them and there is no painting by Sigfus Gunnarsson. So the butcher must have kept it.”

  “If he bought it in the first place,” says Steinn. “But it’s very likely, going by this.”

  “And what shall we do now?” asks Hanna.

  “We just remove the top surface,” says Steinn straight-out. He gets up to fetch The Birches, places it on his workbench, and pulls the angle lamp over, lighting up the painting completely. He rubs his good eye.

  Hanna gives him a worried look.

  “It’s all right,” says Steinn. “It’s just because the patch on the other eye makes this one tired.”

  “Are you going to do it now?” Hanna asks, aghast. Steinn bursts out laughing.

  “No, of course not. I don’t even know if it’s possible. It depends on the chemical makeup. I’ll have to have a closer look.”

  They both look at the painting. Hanna does not see beauty in the brushstrokes, nor does she admire the interplay of colors on the canvas. She sees an embarrassing artifact, the fruit of greed and deceit that demeans art and Gudrun’s work. But what if a genuine work of art lies hidden there, under the birch copse?

  “But what about Gudrun’s painting though?” asks Hanna without expecting an answer. “Should we give preference to a painting that could potentially be by a male artist over a genuine painting by a female artist? Is a work of art by Sigfus more important than one by Gudrun? She was just as talented an artist as Sigfus. How can we choose between them? We can’t be a hundred percent sure that this isn’t a painting by Gudrun.”

  Hanna isn’t sure what the right thing to do is. In her mind she still hasn’t excluded the possibility that this is Gudrun’s painting. She feels she needs to protect women’s interests, as women often do, consciously or unconsciously, in all fields. In the art world women are not on an equal footing with men any more than anywhere else, but Hanna doesn’t want to go into that with Steinn, nor does it interest him. Steinn is clearly no chauvinist, no more than many other men. But he wouldn’t see it as a gender issue. In his eyes Gudrun and Sigfus are equally important as painters, and that is enough for him.

  Steinn doesn’t respond immediately; instead he runs his finger lightly down the trunk of a birch in the copse. “Yes, you’re right. The other option is to do nothing. Keep quiet about it. Exhibit The Birches as an original by Gudrun.” Steinn hesitates. He looks at the gnarled birch in the painting. He carries on, his voice not entirely free of sarcasm. “That would suit everyone nicely. We would avoid the hassle. It would also be better for the gallery. Better for Elisabet Valsdottir. Better for the auction house. For the person who forged this. Maybe better for everyone apart from Gudrun Johannsdottir, and she is dead.”

  Hanna notices a small vertical wrinkle appear in the middle of Steinn’s forehead as it always does when he is dissatisfied with something.

  “It would be best for everyone,” he goes on. “Silence is golden. Why do you think that the forgery case just fizzled out and all these paintings are back in circulation? Precisely for this reason—people don’t want to know about it. It’s much safer just to turn a blind eye to a Kjarval painting bought at auction for three million. Why have it investigated just to discover it is worthless? None of your friends can tell the difference anyway. Everyone is in on it. Even the auction house. Do you think that we’ll ever find out who bought the painting from the man’s estate and sold it on when Elisabet bought it?”

  Steinn is angry.

  “Or even when Composition in Blue was bought last year. I’ll tell you about that one. It was one of the most expensive works of art by an Icelandic artist that had ever been purchased. It was in all the papers. But do you think I get to see the ownership history?”

  Steinn turns his gaze from the painting to Hanna, his eye flaming with fury; she has never seen him so enraged before.

  “No, it wasn’t released. As you know. No one knows who found the painting housed by a family from Denmark who put it up for auction, where the bank bought it.” He shakes his head. “I’d always intended to look more closely into this family in Denmark who were supposed to have found the work. I still haven’t got around to it. My eyes were acting up at the time.”

  “Why isn’t this information released?” asks Hanna. “I don’t understand it. It’s not as if it’s personal or medical details—I could understand that. But of course it’s obvious what’s behind it.”

  Steinn nods in agreement. “Maybe someone needed to dispose of black-market money or simply wants to keep their private business private.”

  Hanna gazes at the painting, looking for something to reveal the deceit, something that shows beyond doubt that the painting cannot have been by Gudrun, but obviously there is nothing to give it away.

  “We need to discuss this with Kristin,” says Steinn calmly, “before we do anything.”

  Hanna gives a sigh of relief. So she doesn’t need to take the plunge herself and potentially destroy a work of art by one of the nation’s most distinguished female artists.

  “I’m also going to send a paint sample up to the university for analysis,” says Steinn. “Then we can determine the age of the colors better. Best to take a sample from Composition in Blue while I’m at it. That could have been forged from the outset. Painted on an old canvas, secured on an old frame, and then the colors made to look authentic. Forgers actually seek out paintings in an artist’s career that are known about but haven’t yet been found. Then the painting suddenly ‘appears’ and matches precisely what was known about it. But we’d better discuss this with Kristin as quickly as possible. Preferably right now. This is a serious issue, and it shouldn’t wait.”

  Hanna detects a newfound confidence in his words, a focus and decisiveness that she likes.

  “But can we be absolu
tely sure?” The danger seems great to Hanna. “A work of art by Gudrun, or not by her, cost eight million. And then to say, let’s wash it off. Even though it may be covering a painting by Sigfus. We need to be certain.”

  “We will be,” replies Steinn bluntly, and he turns off the computer. “We’ll get this settled when the analysis comes through.”

  Hanna stands up; she needs to move.

  “Forgeries have certainly been on the increase in the last few years. I was reading up about it while you were off work.” She doesn’t say sick; that word doesn’t suit Steinn. “Not long ago even Sotheby’s withdrew a painting by Shishkin the day before it was due to be put up for auction.”

  “Yes, that’s right,” says Steinn. “You’re talking serious money there.”

  “Why do we need to run this by Kristin? Wouldn’t it be better to have something specific before we talk to her?”

  “But we’ve already got something,” replies Steinn. “The paint sample would really only be a confirmation of what we know—The Birches is a forgery.”

  Hanna feels a stab in her heart hearing him say it straight-out like that. They both know that Kristin will not be pleased to hear that the painting her friend Elisabet gave her is a worthless forgery. The only upside could be that under the forgery lies a work that is probably by Sigfus Gunnarsson. Especially if the painting by Sigfus the gallery already owns also turns out to be a forgery.

  “Elisabet would have done better putting the money into research,” says Hanna sarcastically. “That way we might be in a better position now.”

  Steinn switches off the lamp and wraps The Birches back up. “We’ll see if we can get a hold of Kristin before she goes. Best to get the deed over with,” he says, smiling encouragingly at Hanna.

  It’s late in the day and the gallery has already closed. When Hanna and Steinn get up to Kristin’s office, it has begun to grow dark outside and the snow-covered sides of Mount Esja are a reddish pink; the sun is beginning to dip in the sky. Hanna looks out over the familiar lines of the mountain as she has so often since she arrived, and yet again feels happy to be home, despite Frederico’s affair and missing her family and despite this unexpected turn her job has taken. Mount Esja is also her mountain; she doesn’t feel fond of it in the way she does of the mountains from her childhood, but Esja is still part of her life. She would love the mountains to be part of Heba’s life as well, but she knows she will have to accept that they never will be. Heba doesn’t hold mountains in her soul, she thinks almost reverently. She holds the city, canals, buildings, and the hustle and bustle of urban life.