by Deborah Templeton
Brush and palette in hand, Vinia is waiting when he arrives. It is their first lesson. Yesterday, he received her in the drawing room for an interview – brief. He knows already everything about her. Knows she is her father’s daughter. Today, their appointment is in the studio.
He enters, quiet-footed, and startles when he sees her. As though she was not expected, or – perhaps expected and yet still surprising. He folds his hands, asks her to please stand, come with him.
At the back of the room, there are canvases stacked against the wall, boxes of props and drapes, and rows of demijohns. She will begin by mixing paints – a glance to garner her response. She dips her head. Of course. Puts down the palette and the brush.
He shows her where the vials are stored, names for her the substances and the colours they will become. Azurite, malachite, cochineal. She nods along. Dead insects, toxic minerals, plant roots. These are her familiars, after all. Porphyry and hematite. Caustic.
She takes up the pestle, and begins. Grinding, blending. She is adept, an old hand. Very good, he says, his voice curt. And goes alone to the sunny end of the studio where the easels are set.
She has been here a week, daydreaming in the scented air like an apothecary’s assistant. Humming under her breath to the scrape of pestle on mortar, the crack of minerals crumbling, the drip and swill of liquids distilling, decanting.
She reaches for a dish of roots, breathes its earthy aroma. Rose madder. Fugitive when exposed to light. Old friend, let me bind you in an alchemical sleight. Let me ground you. Mordant and lake. From transience I will magic you halfway to lightfast.
Tomorrow, perhaps he will let her paint.
Today, they begin. He watches her eye the still life – a candle stick and a statue. He watches her ready her palette, choose her brush. Sees the way she takes her seat – the poise of her head, the steadiness of her gaze. He pulls his stool in closer to the easel, adjusts his angle, twice.
The day is warm, and light streams and pools. Moments drop slow in the concentrated air. Her eyes fall on line and shape and shadow, follow contour and curve. Shafts of sun falling white on alabaster. Gradations of grey.
She has been here a month. Today, they are, again, painting the little alabaster sage. The drapes of his gown, the tuck and curl of hair and beard – these come easy. But the bared torso, the muscle mass, the curve in the trapezium – these elude her. Even her father would not permit her to study life drawing, anatomy in the flesh.
She looks up, finds her tutor’s eyes upon her – cool, blue, caustic. Sighs and drops her gaze.
Tomorrow, perhaps he will intervene, teach a little.
He rises, approaches, stands in close. She feels his breath upon her neck. Then, his hand upon her hand.
“Begin”, he says.
She raises the brush. And like a dancer she follows him, dissolving under his touch, intuiting his intention. His hand makes the lines move through her mind; a sweep, a flourish, a tight turn in the brush tip. And the likeness finds its form, bodying forth… she bites her lip.
He says, “Like this. Now this. Not this…” – an awkward move at the wrist – “…or you will be lost”.
She dreams herself lost. She dreams herself unsteadied by her master’s hand – loosed from the gravitational pull of the easel and emptied into emptiness. Azure, aqua, ultramarine. Her limbs flailing, falling. His tutelage consummated in the flow of paint, the daubed line, the stroked shape. More than anything – in the colour. She is a wash of rose madder. Fugitive in the light.
He watches her. Sees her down to her every lash, every thread in her brocade. He sees her with an artist’s eye. They paint together now, in the long warmth of the streaming sunlight. Side by side. Her mind finding his mind, her thought moving just a heartbeat behind his. His vision, clear. His technique, flawless. The means reasoned and the mind let drop away into wordless action, channelled grace. This is why her father chose him.
Day by day, she is binding to his caustic.
The alabaster sage again. She knows now how to shape the arc of his spine, the line of his clavicles. She has the measure of the man. And she is tired of the exercise. Restless. Her palette is dull – lead white, bone black. Celibate.
Let me ground you. From transience I will magic you lightfast.
She flounces up out of her seat. Goes to the piles of cloths and cambrics, selects a Turkish rug, beats off dust. He looks up sharp-eyed – and finds her returning his glare.
She goes to the still-life, drapes and shapes the rug. Stands back, appraises, tugs it into angled folds, and returns to her place. Lifts her brush. In one heartbeat, her eyes scan, steady, hold. She has her gravity again.
Silence sits hot in the room, sultry. It is beyond noon. Slowly, he turns back to his work. The light now borrows from the rug’s tufted reds; throws ochres and ambers onto the alabaster – and the little wise man glows, his torso rouged in rose. Above his beard, an all-too-human blush.
The teacher hears his student shift in her seat. He looks. Vinia is renewing her palette. Carmine, vermillion, cinnabar. Becoming master to the master. Her red tones glow.
Deborah Templeton is a writer from the north coast of Ireland who works across page, stage and audio. Her work includes a contemplative poetry trail in a National Trust woodland, a forest performance written in the Panamanian jungle, and the short story, Water’s Edge, published by Confingo as an illustrated edition with radiophonic download (2023).
