Brigette clenched her paintbrush just a tad tighter at the sudden presence of the substitute, her skin crawled with the tiniest bits of apprehension and intrusion. Her shoulders curled inward reflexively, attempting to hide the raw heart of the canvas. Before her lay streaks of flesh, curved calves stretched from the apex of the canvas and tapered into quiet toes laden with innocence. The Stygian earth the feet rested upon was damp, saturated with not only paint but vision, and rose petals lay crushed beneath those saintly toes, their color bleeding onto the pale flesh in a mix of musky earth and the frail dew of petals on the tongue.
How does one put that into feasible words? It lay heavy on her tongue, and the nickname was not lost on her as she briefly placed her paintbrush down and addressed the substitute. “Definitely not ‘The Map of Hell’…But I’m not sure I can give you a shortened summary. The paint is something you feel…It’s different for every pair of stranger eyes.”
She turned towards the hovering substitute, detaching her eyes from the canvas, and like a shifting of seats, Brigette was back in the hushed classroom with not-Gingers. The substitute’s eyes were those of a stranger, the brief rolling of storm clouds, focused and sunken. They were new to her, but almost pleasant to look at indirectly despite their unfamiliarity.
Her fingers itched to grasp her paintbrush again and begin a new canvas, or unsheathe her camera and capture that subtle intensity. Brigette looked back to her unfinished piece with gentle speculation as she did neither. “What do you think it is?…Besides merely a painting…” she inquired shyly, wanting to hear what came to mind from an outsider, but still feeling discomfort at the fleshed, rawness of the piece.
Penn has been thinking more along the lines of The Birth of Venus, but that was a conversation for another time. He tilted his head to the side just slightly, intrigued by the way she described her piece. As hesitant as she was, he could tell she harboured a deep love and appreciation for her art; and he wondered if that passion could almost be called spiritual as well.
“You’d let me take a look?” he asked, and he had to admit a part of him was honored by that permission. With that affirmation, he took a few careful steps to the side and leaned just close enough to get a good look at her work without really invading her personal space.
What he saw on the canvas struck him into amazement, and he had to catch himself before his eyes nearly started to drift in different directions as he sought to absorb every detail of the image. “Well, it’s incredible, that much is for sure,” he said for a start. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think it was a photograph.”
His gaze lingered on the piece, climbing along the pale, slender legs and taking in the places where feet met painted earth, and were stained by petals the rich, vivid color of blood. The image called to mind the representation of a loss of innocence, though he couldn’t quite tell if that was the years he’d spent studying literature talking, or just his dirty mind.
He managed to pull his eyes away from the painting and look back towards its artist; who was, in her own way, also a work of art. “It feels...very symbolic, to me,” he told her, choosing his words carefully. Perhaps innately personal? he wondered, but didn’t dare say aloud. “I think there’s deep, unfettered emotions there on the canvas, so much so that it stirs something within the viewer.” Hopefully she would know he meant the statement as an interpretation of the art, rather than a misguided attempt to psychoanalyze her. His expression softened. “It’s beautiful. I really mean that.”
On the back of his head, he could feel the jealous eyes of Esther Klammer from across the room.
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