I coasted to a stop in front of a sign that read NO PARKING – TOW ZONE. Just as well. I left the keys in the ignition and started walking, ignoring the honks of annoyed drivers. The trip had taken only a few hours, accompanied at first by music and later on by nothing but the sound of the tires on the road and that soft thumping that came from the back corner any time I broke 70 miles an hour.
My phone was down to eight percent. I slipped it into the first trash can I saw when I entered the museum. Everywhere I looked, I saw security cameras concealed in their shiny black beetle shells. I wondered if anyone was actually watching the footage, or if my visit would be observed, filed away, and forgotten about. Would anyone ever know that this recording held someone’s last day alive?
The European wing was warmly lit, golden lights casting down on aging canvas. Everything about this place was meant to ease the eye, especially in contrast to the bright white hallways filled with sculptures I had just left.
I wandered a collection of portraits, their subjects long dead. I used to be a person who could love, and one of the things I loved was art. I had come here because I thought a nice museum trip would be a fitting denouement. But even this joy was forbidden me. All I could see in these faces were old rich fucks who wouldn’t spit on a faggot like me if I were on fire. I wanted to say “to hell with them,” but I didn’t really believe in hell.
I kept moving, heart pounding. I checked over my shoulder, but nobody was there except the museum worker with the tattoo of a coyote prancing through white lilies. He gave me a polite smile beneath his mask.
“I remember you,” he said. “Out of towner, right? You’ve been here a few times.”
I swallowed. “Uh. Yeah.”
It was true, I had walked these halls a few times. A few years back, after Claire, I had come to this very museum and found myself staring into a splattery, abstract piece from a former Soviet painter. Somewhere in the haze between the blues and greens which mingled like fog, I misplaced the grief I had carried for our life together. But today I spent my time among those former comforts with my jaw set and my fists clenched in the pockets of my hoodie.
My awkwardness slid off him as he shook my hand. “I’m Gabe. We actually have some new pieces down hallway K, if you’re interested. They haven’t sent out this month’s newsletter yet, so you’ll be one of the first to see ’em.”
My mind was empty and gnawing, but my heart…flickered. Just a bit. It felt a fleeting thought, but I did my best to smile at him.
“Th-thanks, ah…Gabe.” I must have seen him before, but I rarely paid attention to the people here.
I turned the corner and slowed. The new exhibit featured an eclectic collection of religious works. I saw paintings with meticulous, nearly invisible brushstrokes, and statues loomed in alcoves and behind glass cases. I even lingered near a collection of apotropaic jewelry bearing divine imagery. These gave me a twinge of envy. Days like these made it hard to believe that the watchful power of God could be held in the hand and passed around freely.
I scoffed inwardly at one amulet which held a very familiar quote from Isaiah engraved into a thin scroll of silver leaf: “No weapon that is fashioned against you shall prosper.” It was a nice sentiment, but a house divided against itself cannot stand.
I paused in front of a statue of Saint George. He stood wrought in iron, spear raised with casual grace. He gazed down at the pitiable thing cowering under his boot. The so-called dragon seemed to know its fate and snarled in writhing, panicked defiance. As I stared down at its diminutive shape I could smell the metal, despite the glass between us. It made my mouth taste like blood.
I pulled myself away and looked to the next alcove, which held a painting. A woman stared out at me, beckoning. Her face was stern, but her eyes were more sad than angry. She was surrounded by a half dozen rag-clad urchins. Some clung at her waist, others played games with each other in the dust of the road. But every one of them had their eyes locked with mine. The children guarded her and her benevolence with jealous eyes.
The next painting was the largest, and deservedly so. It was the Main Event. The one we all know. It stretched from floor to ceiling, almost big enough to be a window more than a painting. For a moment I idly imagined the logistics of painting something this big, but the faces in the painting swept those thoughts away. A sea of weeping onlookers and stoic soldiers crowded the foreground. All eyes, on both sides of the composition, were drawn to Him.
It was a beautiful Crucifixion. He hung limp and bloodied, crowned in His agony. One soldier was approaching, spear in hand. The sky was dark and restless, the sun a muted disc painted over with thin layers of black paint.
His face was downturned, eyes unfocused. My palms prickled with sweat as I recognized that expression. Pain beyond the reach of physical reaction. Empty eyes, bereft of hope. That face, and the blood dripping from His wrists, felt far too real. I found myself whispering the words I knew so well. My God, my God, why have you abandoned me? My mouth was dry, and the words were barely audible even to me.
Then, I noticed the gaze of another: One person in the whole massive scene who looked away from Him, toward the viewer. He stood at the very edge of the painting, before a group of onlookers bearing torches in the darkness, and those fires almost seemed a halo. One hand held a palm branch, and the other reached out toward me.
I stepped forward, but my eyes never left that stranger with the light. He held my gaze, smiling with a tenderness I’d never seen before. As the tears blurred my vision I heard a soft dripping sound. I stopped trying to fight the pain and my chest heaved with sobs that sparked an ache in my side. Reason fled my mind, and I didn’t question why my hand was wet as I felt the canvas. The paint was warm and soft, as if I were touching a real human hand.
The Accomplishing by Jordan Carol. 1876. Oil on canvas.
With tremendous shadows and equally dazzling light, Carol’s Accomplishing traps us on the boundary between life and death, past and future, perdition and salvation. This is the only piece from Carol that has survived to the modern day, as the rest of his work was destroyed during World War II. The loss is a massive tragedy, as Carol is praised to no end in letters from his tutor, Alexandre Cabanel, as “a true son of the Academy.” Here we see the limp Christ has released his final breath, his body slack in ultimate surrender to God, fate, and possibly death. The Roman soldier approaches to pierce his side, but the painting keeps him at bay, and Jesus’s expression is painted with a captivating ambiguity. Meanwhile, the crowds gather to watch. All eyes are fixed on the Son of God except the woman who stands at the edge of the painting, beckoning the viewer with scarred arms to join her in mourning and vigil.
Words From Nora Blake 