Paint the Wind, page 15
I had seen this same landscape for over a hundred days since my arrival. At times, it had been shrouded in mist, with only memory delineating its contours. Today, the angle of the sun sharply defined the rocky ledges, the needles of the Aleppo pines, and the tender leaves of emerging undergrowth. Here and there, spring flowers nestled among the subtle greenery.
At first, I had intended to draw a broad swath of the landscape—the sea on the horizon, the rising cliff on the side of the cove opposite my vantage point, and the densely growing trees that flourished throughout the island and contributed a major source of its economy. But my eye was drawn from the expansive distance to a minute aspect of nature. I rose from the ledge and moved toward an oak tree. Circling its trunk was a cascade of striated fungus with ruffled edges. When I got closer, I examined the delicate pattern and reached out to touch it. It had an earthy odor and a spongy texture. Its flared edges and variegated colors in spirals of brown, orange, and green fascinated me. I wished I had paints or pastels to capture the variations in color, but had to satisfy my desire to reproduce the fungus with only shades of pale gray to black.
I sat on the ground on a patch of soft moss, took up the pencil, and began to sketch the fungus, line by line—some razor thin and others achieved by placing the side of the pencil flat against the paper. At first, my hand was tentative and the image was small and tight. I was trying too hard, approaching the task with rigidity rather than willingness.
I wanted to crumple the paper. My attempted sketch was an embarrassment caused by my own inactivity, my own unwillingness to lift myself out of an emotional paralysis that had become far more confining than my father’s decision to banish me from Vienna. But I only had the one sheet with me. I turned it over, flexed my fingers, and began again.
In recent years, practice had made me far more adept at capturing faces, but I dismissed my lack of experience with other forms as a weak excuse for the poor quality of the product. The natural world had presented me with a challenge, and I was going to rise to meet it.
As a schoolgirl, I’d been required to keep a notebook of daily sketches of simple objects that I encountered in the course of the day. The practice was an exercise to train our eyes in observation and our hands in recreating what we saw. I had put away the notebook years before, but the lessons I’d learned in filling it had not abandoned me.
I asked myself what I was trying to accomplish with this sketch. The answer was to bring to the page my awe and fascination with an element of nature that was both beautiful and poisonous. That fungus was sapping the life out of the tree to which it had attached itself. A minute spore caught by the wind had burrowed its way into the bark and bloomed, flourishing while it robbed the tree of its own life force.
The very specific definition of my drawing, so precise and almost architectural, was a far cry from the exuberant vitality of Elise’s painting and the work of Andreas and his colleagues in Vienna. But I felt the discipline of the exercise was necessary to my fledgling attempt to recapture the joy of my childhood pastime. I needed to prove to myself that I could first recreate what I saw in the world. The time to develop my vision would only come later.
In the following days, I scavenged for bits of paper while also wearing down YiaYia’s pencil, which I had to take a knife to several times to whittle a sharp point. I wandered around the garden or through the house, seeking out objects to draw. YiaYia noticed the growing stack of paper scraps and turned them over one by one. Occasionally, a smile of recognition would light up her face.
“These are quite good, Maya. I remember the drawings your father sent in letters when you were a girl. Even then, you had an eye for transforming the world around you into something magical. It’s a gift.”
YiaYia’s praise pierced my armored heart. I had anesthetized myself against the pain of loss caused by my exile using not the laudanum of anxious Viennese matrons or the opium of intense young men in the artists’ quarter but rather the sheer force of my will. When my grandmother’s words broke through the protective armor, however, I found myself crying. I had a gift, a gift that I had denied in my pursuit of power as Andreas’s muse.
I wiped away the tears, feeling foolish. YiaYia’s words were only a grandmother’s loving opinion, not a review in the Neues Wiener Tagblatt. Nevertheless, they had awakened a long dormant joy. Beyond the pleasure that creating the drawings had given me, my art had brought my grandmother a moment of delight, and I knew I needed that sense of purpose. I wanted something I created to move people. I wanted to make more magic.
Chapter Nineteen
The Goldbergs came for tea three days later. They attempted, with their rudimentary Greek, to converse with YiaYia. Oscar’s Greek was the language of the ancients. YiaYia finally got up and made excuses about a new baby and mother she needed to visit and left us to pick up in German, where we—at least I—desperately needed the conversation to proceed.
I delved in like a starving sailor finally on terra firma stuffing himself with meat and vegetables after enduring hardtack and raw fish for months at sea. We talked of Vienna, the Secession, and another women’s exhibition at Salon Pisko. Oscar regaled us with tales of his travels to India and Persia. He revealed he was writing a novel but would not discuss its topic.
Elise teased him. “Artists have no way to hide their works in progress the way writers can tuck their notebooks in a drawer and lock them away from prying eyes.”
“You could always cover your canvas with a cloth,” he retorted.
“But as soon as I am out on the hillside, it’s exposed once again for anyone to see. I can’t bear being confined in a studio, so I must work en plein air. I want to paint landscapes to capture nature’s beauty and wildness and strangeness. It’s simply not possible if I’m surrounded by walls. I need to absorb the atmosphere with every sense, not just my sight.”
I was enthralled by her description of her process, and also by the banter between brother and sister. As an only child, even though I had cousins in both Vienna and Skiathos, I’d never experienced the ease and intimacy I saw on display between Oscar and Elise.
I rose to get more sweets from the kitchen. Both of them had devoured the Hamalia, cookies made from ground almonds, sugar and orange blossom water, exclaiming over their deliciousness. Elise had licked her fingers clean of the dusted sugar. When I returned with a platter of baklava, I found her standing by a chest near the window. In her hand was a sheaf of papers, my drawings. I knew I hadn’t left them out, but then remembered YiaYia stopping by the chest before she left the house. She must have put them there. Elise was shifting through the stack, taking in the images one by one.
“Who made these drawings? I couldn’t quell my curiosity after I saw the first one.”
I put the tray down and somehow found my voice. “They’re mine.”
I could have downplayed their importance to me, called them only informal sketches, and feigned indifference. But I didn’t. I waited.
Finally, she spoke. “You have both a remarkable eye and an exciting technique. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such depth and variety of strokes. Did you only use a pencil? It’s extraordinary what you’ve managed to achieve with such a simple medium. I thought you told me you hadn’t painted since childhood.”
“I hadn’t, but after meeting you that day in the meadow, I came home and started to draw again. Our conversation prompted me to ask myself why I hadn’t continued with my art. There were no paints in the house, so I improvised with a pencil.”
“Well, your improvisations are quite remarkable. And you haven’t had any instruction since you were a schoolgirl?”
I shook my head.
“Maya, you must continue. You have talent that shouldn’t be allowed to atrophy. But you need to develop it, give it a strong foundation.”
“That’s very kind of you to say, Elise, but I’m not sure that’s possible. You haven’t been on Skiathos long, so you may not realize that such an opportunity for any kind of training simply doesn’t exist here. There are no art teachers, not even an informal group of artists.”
“Oh, I’ve noticed. We’ve never been anywhere like this before, where we haven’t been able to find kindred souls pursuing their vision and sharing their interpretations. It’s been quite lonely.”
“Now, Elise, I warned you Skiathos was isolated.”
“I know, Oscar. I know you wanted to write in peace without being bombarded every evening in a coffeehouse with some nascent poet’s excruciating exploration of death and love. But I wasn’t expecting to be so lonely and hungry for intelligent conversation. Your company is wonderful, dear brother, but we know each other too well.”
“I’ve been lonely, too.” I wanted to call the words back as soon as I said them and almost slapped my hand against my mouth as a rebuke. Instead, I grabbed the tray of baklava and thrust it in front of Elise.
“More sweets?”
Elise looked at me. I’m sure my face was bright red.
“Of course you’re lonely. I’ve only been here two weeks, and I’m falling asleep over my book in the evenings instead of arguing about the role of art in the modern world. I can’t imagine what it’s been like for you.”
Elise plucked a square of baklava from the platter. “It was such serendipity that you were picking flowers in the meadow I was painting the other day, like we were meant to encounter each other. I have an idea. Would you be willing to paint with me this summer? We could share paints. I have more than enough, and we could critique each other. We could form our own women painters group, a Frauenkunstverein.”
“I would love that. But I’ll need more than pigments if I’m to develop my talent.”
“Then allow me to be your instructor. I’ve given art lessons in Vienna and various other places we’ve traveled to and stayed in for a while.”
“That is so generous of you, but I must pay you.”
“I would be more than satisfied if you paid me in pastries.”
“It would be my pleasure, but I can’t meet you every day to paint. I have responsibilities here.” I waved my hand around the house.
“Understood. Perhaps we could meet once a week. Would next Thursday suit you? We could meet in the meadow. I’ll bring my supplies, and we can get started.”
After Elise and Oscar left, as I gathered up the coffee cups, I marveled at how the day had been unlike any other since my arrival. It had lifted my spirits not only to be speaking German but to be discussing art and the life I left behind. I thought the reminder of all I had lost might have provoked me to despondency, but Elise’s vivacity and generosity of spirit had instead offered me a bit of home and hope. She had even at one point said we would be creating a Little Vienna, the three of us. She included Oscar in our club, and I realized how much I had missed a masculine perspective. Oh, I was surrounded by men here—my grandfather, my uncles, my cousins—but on Skiathos, men and women led separate lives. Divisions were pronounced. The lines between men’s work and women’s work were not to be crossed.
Oscar was unlike the Skiathan men I knew, but he was also unlike Andreas and the other artists in that circle. Perhaps it could be chalked up to his being a writer and not a painter. Elise had identified one difference between the two—how closely a writer can hold his work in progress, while most of the artists I knew tended to splash their pigments boldly onto canvases and vociferously proclaim that their art revealed humanity’s true face.
When YiaYia returned, she found me in the kitchen washing up.
“Did you have a good visit? The man who could only speak ancient Greek, was he able to converse in modern German?” She smiled. “The sister is the strong one, not only because she spoke better Greek.” She put her apron on and began to gather the vegetables to prepare dinner.
“You only spoke to them for a few minutes. How did you make that judgment?”
She touched her finger to her head. “I have to understand a situation quickly as a healer. She is the one making decisions for them. He appears content to let her. So what did she decide? Will you see her again?”
“I should no longer be amazed by you, YiaYia, but I am. Yes, she led the conversation. She invited me to paint with her and offered to share her materials. I won’t have to wear your pencil down to a nub.”
I joined my grandmother at the table and helped her peel potatoes, carrots, and onions. At one point, she reached over and patted my hand.
“It’s good you’ll be using these hands to make something beautiful.”
The following Thursday at seven in the morning, I headed for the meadow with a jug of tea, an egg sandwich, a full tray of baklava wrapped in paraffin wax paper, a wide-brimmed hat, and one of YiaYia’s old aprons.
Elise was already in the meadow, her easel assembled and a wooden box open on the grass beside her, filled with an array of pigments in tubes and small bottles of linseed oil and turpentine.
As I got closer, I was jolted by the smells, which pulled me back to Andreas’s studio so suddenly it caused me to gasp.
“Are you unwell?” Elise’s face reinforced the concern in her voice.
“I’m quite well. Just remembering how much I missed these familiar aromas.”
“Please help yourself. I’ve prepared a canvas for you. It’s propped up against that boulder. We’ll have to find a carpenter who perhaps can replicate my easel. So what do you want to paint today?”
“I’m not sure yet. I’ll wander for a few minutes. Please don’t let me disturb you.”
She picked up her brush. “Very well. I have only one piece of advice: Begin boldly. Your drawings are quite precise, almost architectural, which suits the medium of pencil and paper well. But paint is more freeing, at least for me. See color before you examine the details. Observe the light as it becomes obscured by clouds or spills over the hillside unimpeded.”
And so I wandered, letting my eyes sweep over the landscape. I remembered Elise speaking the other day about absorbing the outdoors through all one’s senses, not just sight. I had moved away from her paint box and lost the studio smells, but what wafted toward me on a gentle wind was the aroma of spring, of green shoots and yellow pollen. I sat down, removed my boots and stockings, and felt the moist earth between my toes. I heard humming and fluttering and chirping. As Elise had suggested, my eyes registered swaths of color.
And then I picked up the canvas, a brush, and a palette, and I began to paint.
Chapter Twenty
Elise and I painted until late afternoon. After cleaning her brushes, she wandered over to my canvas, sat on the grass, and studied it. Her arms were folded, as if to keep her hands still so they did not reach for my brush.
“How do you feel about your first day?”
I shrugged. “I am more adept at recognizing the success or failure of someone else’s art.”
She raised her eyebrows. She seemed on the verge of asking me, “Whose art?” but then held back. I was relieved. I shouldn’t have intimated that I was close enough to any artist who would listen to my opinion.
“Come now, Maya, surely you have some feeling about what you’ve attempted here, and I am emphasizing the word ‘feeling.’ I’m not some professor at the University of Vienna full of pompous ideas about what is and isn’t art. What do you feel?”
“Honestly, I feel uneasy. I feel stiff, like some rusted piece of machinery that has sat unused for too long. I started the day full of expectation, open to the suggestion you made to pay attention to all my senses, but when I look at this canvas, I see nothing of the energy I wanted to convey. Like my drawings, this feels too precise, too literal.”
“Good!”
“How is that good? I’ve always believed good art to be deeply expressive of human emotion, revealing layers of passion or joy or despair. This”—I gestured with my brush to the canvas—“is an accurate rendition of a meadow that could have been captured with a camera.”
Elise stood up and approached the canvas. “A photo cannot recreate the depths that I see here. It cannot layer color over color, revealing the myriad shades in a single bloom stirred by the wind. I see the eye and hand of a singular artist in this painting. This is your interpretation of the meadow, albeit still tentative. My assessment is that you have a great deal you want to say with your art. You are only at the beginning of discovering how to say it.”
She smiled. “Now clean your brushes and let’s eat some of your grandmother’s baklava.”
After we’d eaten and packed up, we walked together to the road where our paths diverged, one path leading to the guesthouse of the widow Asimina and the other to my grandparents’ home.
“I will see you again on Thursday,” she said. “Until then, try transforming one of your sketches into color.”
When I returned home, I opened the gate to the garden and deposited my canvas and the box of paints Elise had given me on the bench outside the house. Then I paced back and forth in front of the painting, trying to see what Elise had seen. Was this the work of a nascent talent, as yet untrained but with a developing vision? Or was it simply a schoolgirl’s assignment, good enough to meet the standards of Notre Dame de Sion, technically proficient but lacking a soul? Settling on the latter possibility, I decided the painting said nothing. I wanted to slash the lifeless canvas, but the material was too precious.
Instead, I opened a tube of titanium white and painted over the poppy-filled meadow.
When I entered the house, YiaYia was in the kitchen gutting a fish.
“Yiannis brought it from his catch today. Too small for the market, but it’s enough to make a fish soup for us.”
