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Twilight: Irresistible Destiny
Rothko's change, his passage almost without transition, to an immediate, definitive form. It is there all at once, perfectly mastered, end of story. And it is light-years away from what he was doing up to that point. (Cool Memories IV 84-85)
This is something entirely different from an evolution - even a creative evolution. It is an almost genetic impulse by which he separates himself miraculously from the artist he still was, with his place in the history of art, to be nothing but the sovereign medium of an extremely simple form, which no longer has anything to do with expressionism or abstraction." (Cool Memories IV 84-85)
Chapter 8 E
EPOV
My god, who is she? She is so completely Other. I am in awe of her, amazed, and desperate to take her now right in the gondola and go to the bottom of the canal with her and drown. I have turned into a madman in my mind to even think like this. I touch her helping her out of the boat, and I can't take my hands off her, so I don't.
This is new to me.
We go inside and I am still processing what she has told me. She's an accessory to a $30,000,000 heist! Of priceless artworks! As if she is talking about baking gingerbread cookies!I can't let her do this. I have to protect her. She can't put herself in jeopardy like this. I couldn't live through it.
We wander and I don't take her to my paintings. There are two of them here as the curator couldn't decide which one to show. We do the usual talk talk about art as we look, but neither of us is really paying attention. I can't focus while I am feeling her next to me like this. This is our first date for crissakes. I'm concentrating all my energy on not throwing her down on the floor. I want to do it. What the fuck is the matter with me.
Then we turn a corner and she stops dead.
"That's yours, isn't it. I know it is. I've seen your work before. I was supposed to be at your opening in New York, in Chelsea last fall. I was there ready to go in because Alice said I must see it, and I must meet you. When she met me at the door she said it was mobbed. Everyone was trying to talk with you, and it was knee deep in admiring women. She said it was really the wrong time to meet you, the wrong time to be able to contemplate your work, and that we would come back in the daytime when it was not so crowded. We went out to dinner and Jasper, that's her husband, got drunk at dinner because he made so much money from your sales. Oh my god, I don't believe this. Jasper is your agent and Alice is my best friend. She collects and she has a lot of your work. Naturally I've seen all hers. I went back and saw your show when I was alone and I spent three hours looking at it. What if we had met that night! I can't even imagine it!"
And she began to laugh and laugh.
How had I been missing her! All that lost time. But at any of the other meetings, it wouldn't have been the same. I could hardly have taken her at Mary Boone Gallery.
How would I have stopped myself? What would I have said? Something ordinary? And then we might not have known all that we know now. How long would it have taken us to figure this out? Would we ever have figured it out? No, we have met at exactly the right time and in the right way for us. The perfect time. The only time.
I sit on a bench, pull her onto my lap, and hold her tight, so tight. "Oh Bella," I breathe, just "oh Bella," over and over again. I feel her trembling in my arms, and she can't stop either. She is smiling and laughing and then she cries and sobs, then laughs through her tears again. We have been so close, so close all this time. Then we meet as strangers and I grab her and rip her clothes off and violate her. Who could have dreamed this up!
"There's a hotel near here. Let's go check in. We can come back tomorrow and look at my paintings and talk then. I can't focus now. I can't talk about them now the way I wanted to talk with you about them. I wanted to listen to what you see, listen to how you tell me what you see, tell you what I am trying to do with them. But that's all over now. I don't need to continue painting that way anymore. It was all for you, all to find you, and now that I have, I don't need to paint like that anymore. I don't know where I will go next, but it will be something totally new for me. A complete change, like the one Rothko made. No transition, no working my way through something.
"Just a jump over the abyss into the unknown."
Rothko's change, his passage almost without transition, to an immediate, definitive form. It is there all at once, perfectly mastered, end of story. And it is light-years away from what he was doing up to that point. (Cool Memories IV 84-85)
This is something entirely different from an evolution - even a creative evolution. It is an almost genetic impulse by which he separates himself miraculously from the artist he still was, with his place in the history of art, to be nothing but the sovereign medium of an extremely simple form, which no longer has anything to do with expressionism or abstraction." (Cool Memories IV 84-85)
Chapter 8 E
EPOV
 |
| Rothko |
This is new to me.
We go inside and I am still processing what she has told me. She's an accessory to a $30,000,000 heist! Of priceless artworks! As if she is talking about baking gingerbread cookies!I can't let her do this. I have to protect her. She can't put herself in jeopardy like this. I couldn't live through it.
We wander and I don't take her to my paintings. There are two of them here as the curator couldn't decide which one to show. We do the usual talk talk about art as we look, but neither of us is really paying attention. I can't focus while I am feeling her next to me like this. This is our first date for crissakes. I'm concentrating all my energy on not throwing her down on the floor. I want to do it. What the fuck is the matter with me.
Then we turn a corner and she stops dead.
"That's yours, isn't it. I know it is. I've seen your work before. I was supposed to be at your opening in New York, in Chelsea last fall. I was there ready to go in because Alice said I must see it, and I must meet you. When she met me at the door she said it was mobbed. Everyone was trying to talk with you, and it was knee deep in admiring women. She said it was really the wrong time to meet you, the wrong time to be able to contemplate your work, and that we would come back in the daytime when it was not so crowded. We went out to dinner and Jasper, that's her husband, got drunk at dinner because he made so much money from your sales. Oh my god, I don't believe this. Jasper is your agent and Alice is my best friend. She collects and she has a lot of your work. Naturally I've seen all hers. I went back and saw your show when I was alone and I spent three hours looking at it. What if we had met that night! I can't even imagine it!"
And she began to laugh and laugh.
How had I been missing her! All that lost time. But at any of the other meetings, it wouldn't have been the same. I could hardly have taken her at Mary Boone Gallery.
How would I have stopped myself? What would I have said? Something ordinary? And then we might not have known all that we know now. How long would it have taken us to figure this out? Would we ever have figured it out? No, we have met at exactly the right time and in the right way for us. The perfect time. The only time.
I sit on a bench, pull her onto my lap, and hold her tight, so tight. "Oh Bella," I breathe, just "oh Bella," over and over again. I feel her trembling in my arms, and she can't stop either. She is smiling and laughing and then she cries and sobs, then laughs through her tears again. We have been so close, so close all this time. Then we meet as strangers and I grab her and rip her clothes off and violate her. Who could have dreamed this up!
"There's a hotel near here. Let's go check in. We can come back tomorrow and look at my paintings and talk then. I can't focus now. I can't talk about them now the way I wanted to talk with you about them. I wanted to listen to what you see, listen to how you tell me what you see, tell you what I am trying to do with them. But that's all over now. I don't need to continue painting that way anymore. It was all for you, all to find you, and now that I have, I don't need to paint like that anymore. I don't know where I will go next, but it will be something totally new for me. A complete change, like the one Rothko made. No transition, no working my way through something.
"Just a jump over the abyss into the unknown."
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