Paint the Wind, page 22
“I invited Engelhart and Bacher here one day last year. We’d been drinking the night before, and I wanted to get their opinion on the direction I’d taken. It was a stupid mistake.”
It was no wonder he’d been flailing in trying to convince the Secession to give him another show. Those paintings he did without me were unremarkable compared to the Awakening nudes.
“Have a drink and stop pacing. They’ve agreed to come again despite what they saw last winter. I don’t believe they’ll be disappointed.”
He took my suggestion and was less agitated by the time the committee arrived, but I was concerned to learn about the previous visit. It meant the committee would be more skeptical about what they expected to see. They knew from the prints that the subject matter of the work was different, but I hoped that in viewing the original paintings, they would understand Andreas had not lost his ability to capture the truth of human experience.
I opened the door to the studio for them with a flourish. Music emerged from the gramophone exactly as it had been playing when Andreas painted. I said nothing, letting them wander from easel to easel. I had cautioned Andreas not to interject his own comments.
“Let the paintings speak for themselves.”
More than once, the men looked from the paintings to me. They could see I was the face of the Warriors. They needn’t know I was also the driving force behind the series.
When they had finished their perambulation of the studio, I offered them glasses of wine and then stood back while they conferred, first with each other and then with Andreas. When I saw them smile and offer their hand to Andreas, my breathing eased and I released the stiff posture that had held me up.
After the men from the committee had left, I returned to the studio with Andreas, and together we collapsed on the divan. He poured us each another drink, double this time.
In the euphoria induced by the committee’s decision to mount another exhibition of Andreas’s work, I decided the time had come to reveal my own aspirations.
“Are you familiar with the Vienna School of Applied Arts?”
“Max studied there about ten years ago. I think he teaches there now.”
I hadn’t known that. The possibility of encountering anyone I knew in the halls had not occurred to me. Our artist friends were all serious professionals, well on their way to recognition and not in need of instruction. But of course they might teach. I now had even more reason to tell Andreas about my drawing class.
“Why do you ask?”
“I’ve been accepted to study there.”
“Study what—interior or fashion design? That’s wonderful. I’ve been thinking of contacting them for a referral for a designer for the apartment. Now you could do it.”
“Not design. Painting.” I held his gaze.
“I see.”
What do you see, Andreas? A rival or a partner whose work you will support? I didn’t express my thoughts out loud, but I knew this was a crucial question that remained unanswered.
“I’m taking a drawing class two afternoons a week, but expect to add painting to my schedule soon. I’ll need space here.” I extended my arm to take in the studio.
“Fine.”
“With the Warriors going to the Secession Building, it will open up some room for me.”
He didn’t ask to see any of my work or inquire where my interest in becoming a painter had originated. I didn’t expect him to, and was grateful that he hadn’t voiced any objections over losing space to me or losing my attention. For the moment, I had avoided those battles.
“What shall we do to celebrate your new exhibition?” I thought it best to shift the focus back to him. I’d carve out a corner of the studio another day.
He wanted to go to Café Museum, so that’s what we did. He bought a round for everyone and took some teasing from our friends that his fortunes had, once again, turned with my presence.
With the revelation that I, too, was painting, our daily lives took on a different rhythm. I was relieved that the new exhibition kept Andreas sufficiently occupied such that he wasn’t ready to begin a new painting. My modeling duties were in abeyance, and I embraced the freedom, immersing myself in my own work.
I was asked to contribute to a student show at the school and decided to concentrate on portraits of faces I’d seen on my morning wanderings—a fisherman, a mother reading on a park bench while her infant slept in a wicker cart beside her, a chestnut vendor on the Ringstrasse, a carnival operator at the Prater. In all, I created six character studies, the faces depicted on small canvases.
I invited Andreas to the opening, a modest affair with punch and cookies that was attended mainly by the families of the students. Because he had students exhibiting, Max was there. Until the show, I hadn’t crossed paths with him at the school, although I’m sure Andreas had mentioned to him that I was studying there.
While Andreas strolled around the gallery, I stopped to chat with a classmate. Max soon approached and joined the conversation. After the other woman had drifted away, Max turned to me.
“You are a woman of many talents.”
“Thank you.”
“Those faces are quite good.”
“You sound surprised.”
“I didn’t intend to imply that you weren’t capable. Nevertheless, they show mastery that one might not expect from a beginner. You must have studied elsewhere before enrolling here.”
“I did, in Greece. I developed a passion for portraits while working with Elise Goldberg. Do you know her work?”
“I’m not familiar with many women artists, though it’s clear she taught you well.”
I nodded in agreement. “Yes, she did.”
I detected that it was a concession from him to acknowledge Elise’s skill as a teacher. It also saddened me that he did not recognize her name.
Chapter Thirty
While my debut did not garner a mention in the newspaper, I was pleased that Andreas’s Warriors show elicited almost as much attention as the Awakening exhibition. The critics were predictable in their praise or condemnation. Members of the Secession committee hinted that some institutions, not simply private buyers, were interested in purchasing his paintings. His name was also being suggested for permanent and monumental installments, including a mural for the university and a commission from a count who had become enamored of avant-garde art.
Andreas spent his day sketching ideas, many of which ended up torn from the pad and left scattered on the floor, stained with coffee and wine. I did not intervene. My corner of the studio took on its own identity. I was encouraged to experiment and had a mix of successes and failures. I was still working in small forms. Canvases were expensive, and I hadn’t sold anything.
Unfortunately, the hints and suggestions that had been circulating at the Secession Building hadn’t yet materialized for Andreas, and the exhilaration we had both experienced when the show opened was difficult to sustain. We needed Andreas to sell a new painting or take a commission for a society portrait to keep food in the larder, though the latter option did not appeal to him.
“I despise these portraits. I need to continue the new path I forged for my work. The tedium of Vienna’s simpering belles is devouring my creativity. But you are becoming remarkably proficient at your character studies. A portrait commission would be perfect for you.”
“Except that I’m unknown. Those with money to spend want the status of an Andreas Brenner portrait.”
We needed to solve our financial situation soon or our elegant abode, and especially our magnificent studio, would slip from our paint-stained fingers. The worries about money weighed more heavily on me than on Andreas. He seemed to blithely ignore the pile of bills on the dining table as he left for the coffeehouse and esoteric discussions of the meaning of art in the modern world.
Despite my privileged upbringing, I was well aware of what was required to run a household. Both my mother in Vienna and my grandmother on Skiathos had, each in her own way, taught me the skills I needed. I prided myself on transforming the apartment into a home as well as a workplace for both of us.
I knew it would fall to me to find another source of income. On one of my morning walks, I made my way to Friedrichstrasse and rang the bell to Max’s studio. Unlike Andreas, Max was awake and working.
“Maya! What brings you here?”
Before I could change my mind, I blurted out, “Are you still interested in having me model for you?”
A smile spread across his face as he ushered me into the studio.
“Don’t misunderstand me, Max. I’m offering to be your model, not your muse and certainly not your lover. You know I can transform how a painter sees and subsequently reveals his subject. I am offering that skill to you, for a price.”
“And what might that price be?”
We negotiated terms, and I left to convince Andreas of the necessity of my working with Max. It was not a tranquil conversation.
“You promised me that you wouldn’t model for him.”
“That was before I knew we would both need to bring in money to support ourselves. We’ve already been through this. My paintings are unknown, but my reputation as an experienced and skillful model is recognized. I can at least keep a roof over our heads while you find another lucrative commission.”
“But why did you go to Max of all people?”
“Because we know him, he had already asked me, and he can pay.”
“I don’t like it.”
I refrained from throwing the bills at him and instead said, “Then tell me how you intend to pay for these.” I pushed the pile across the table. “Among many other things, our line of credit for art supplies has been shut down. We can’t even get more canvas or pigments to create work we might be able to sell. What alternative do you propose?”
He flipped through the stack, glancing at the amounts without reacting to their magnitude. I couldn’t understand how he could be so oblivious to the costs of daily living. Perhaps the steadiness of his income when he was only painting society portraits had lulled him into thinking he would always have a continuous stream of funds. His decision to move to the apartment had been based on the success of the Secession paintings, but the income from their sale was gone—through carelessness or ignorance or drunkenness. It didn’t matter how. The money had been spent.
“Very well. If there’s no alternative, go ahead. But I want my own time with you.”
“When you are ready, of course.”
With an excruciating attention to the needs of three artists—Andreas, Max, and me—I built a schedule both men could live with and from which I could extract a few hours each day for myself. The fact that Andreas did not have a major new project underway was the only blessing in an otherwise complicated and fraught arrangement. But over the next six months it paid the bills.
Chapter Thirty-One
I wiped my hands on a coarse rag after cleaning my brushes and pressed my palms against the small of my back, leaning back into a stretch. I was tired; I was stiff; I was cold.
I hadn’t wanted to stop to stoke the fire, and now I was paying for it. I had been immersed in color and form, experimenting again with the layering I found so compelling, and had ignored my physical needs. Normally, I could paint for hours without exhaustion. Emotionally drained, yes. Euphoric sometimes on those days when what I have conceived in my head flows through muscle and sinew and blood and leaps from my hovering hand onto the canvas.
But this time, it was different. An ache gripped me, almost crippling me, as I attempted to move across the room to the stove. I grabbed the back of a chair and steadied myself, then slid around to sit down. I could feel my scalp prickle, sweat emerging from the roots of my hair under the scarf I had bound around my head, as though I was a washerwoman bent over a steaming cauldron or a peasant plowing the garden. A wave of nausea accompanied the sweat, and I imagined the color draining from my face, as if the canvas had absorbed it all.
I shivered. Was I becoming ill? I sat for a few minutes, forcing myself to take deep breaths. As I recovered from what I could only describe as a “spell,” as if a curse had been placed on me, I reacted with anger. I had always had command of my body, whether I was modeling for Andreas or pouring my soul onto the canvas or arching into orgasm under Andreas’s hand. Perhaps for the first time, I felt betrayed by my body.
I shook off the discomfort and stood forcibly, almost marching across the floor to the stove. I hooked the handle of the stove with a poker and pulled the door open. A pathetic glimmer of dying embers greeted me, and I stirred them up and blew, puffing them back to life. I threw in a few logs from the basket and held my hands up to the open door to warm them. Once the fire caught, I shut the door and went to the kitchen to make a cup of tea. After some effort, I found a cup that wasn’t overflowing with ashes from Andreas’s cigarettes or serving as a holder for brushes. By the time the water boiled, I was wrapped in a shawl. I moved back to the studio to study the canvas, but not too closely. I wanted an impression from a distance, as if I were a visitor in a gallery and not the artist who had wielded the brush. I walked slowly around the room, observing the canvas from several angles as I cradled my tea.
It was important to me to do this before Andreas returned. Unlike Andreas, who craved my attention when he was in the midst of a painting, I needed solitude. It was my own fault. I had alternately cajoled and challenged him from the first moments of entering his studio. I believed so fervently in his talent, his vision, that I could not hold myself back from expressing both what I saw on the canvas and what I saw with my mind’s eye that he could still bring forth.
It was a power I wielded over him that both fulfilled and drained me.
But in that moment, standing before my own canvas, I needed to listen to the voice I had too often directed to Andreas and failed to offer myself. The canvas rewarded me for the attention I offered it. There was much to like in what I saw: the way the light caught a thickened layer of goldenrod I had slathered onto the forehead; the shape of the nose, accentuated by the shadow fading from indigo to lavender; the reflection in the green-gold iris created by a speck of zinc white. But when I shifted my position again, I saw a flatness of expression confronting me in the woman’s image. My image. This was my fifth self-portrait, and still something continued to elude me.
A niggling voice asked if it was the execution or the subject that was the source of my disappointment. Was my own face so devoid of energy? Was it I who presented a blank visage, a mask that even the artist herself could not remove?
I lifted the canvas from the easel and placed it face to the wall alongside the other four. I draped an old shawl over the collection of wood and cloth and gesso, and turned to make Andreas his supper.
He was late arriving home, slightly drunk, but not so deep in his schnapps that he had slipped into melancholy. He ate his soup and bread with little conversation and retired to his armchair by the stove in the parlor with the newspaper. By the time I finished clearing the table and washing the dishes, I was too tired to join him. I went to bed. Sometime during the night, I stirred and found him snoring beside me.
In the morning, he was gone when I finally woke, still exhausted. It was just as well he wasn’t there, because as soon as I rose, another wave of nausea overcame me and I barely reached the basin I’d left overturned in the sink the night before.
I wiped my mouth and cleaned the basin. I clearly was ill and abandoned my plans for the day. I knew I couldn’t tolerate the aroma of coffee, but I managed to brew myself a cup of chamomile tea before retreating to bed.
I woke again around noon, famished and no longer queasy. I had a few eggs and some potatoes in the larder and made one of YiaYia’s omelets, although I had no feta to truly replicate a meal as familiar and comforting to me as mother’s milk.
Fortified, I dressed and went out to do the marketing. I returned with my market basket laden and deposited it on the kitchen table before seeking out Andreas, who was home early. I found him rummaging through a trunk.
“We’ve been invited this evening to Madame Zuckerkandl’s salon. I saw Walter at the café, and he managed to secure us an invitation. Where’s my white silk cravat?”
I crossed the room and opened the armoire. There on the floor in a shimmering puddle was his cravat. I shook it out.
“It will need ironing. I’ll take care of it. What time does the salon begin?”
“Eight o’clock. Wear the red dress.”
Of course. A signature. I pulled it from the same armoire and hung it by the window to air out. By the time I’d ironed the cravat, fixed my hair, and donned the dress, it was time to go. Thankfully, I hadn’t had another episode of nausea.
We took the trolley to Madame Zuckerkandl’s and made our way up the staircase to her apartment on Nußwaldgasse. The rooms were bustling with activity. Crystal goblets brimmed with Burgundy. Pearls, sapphires, and golden bangles flashed in the candlelight as the hands they adorned gestured in emphasis or greeting; an electric hum vibrated throughout, carried on the smoke of cigars, pipes, and a few cigarettes decorating the tips of ebony holders. I absorbed it all, watching as if it were a mural or, rather, a theater piece, which, of course, it was. Every guest there was a performer, singing for the attention of the money in the room, or a professor who could recommend a fledgling academic to a prestigious post, or a bored wife who would appreciate and reward an attentive new lover.
Andreas and I split apart five feet inside the apartment. We never moved through these events together. There was too much to glean and gather. It was better for us to be in two places, hearing different stories and comments. It was better for each of us, as well, to be performing alone. If I was by Andreas’s side, it was too easy for people to recognize me from the Awakening paintings and dismiss me. But on my own, even in the red dress, I could exist as my own person.
