Friday, 1 February 2008

Degas' Dancers

Posted from JFK airport, autumn 2007.

I've seen a lot of art this vacation (big hint: if you want to see modern art in NY, go direct to the Met or the small galleries; the other museums just aren't worth it), and the more I see, the more I imagine the stories that go with it. I know there are in fact real stories, and already there are made-up stories (the girl with a pearl earring for instance), but it is so tempting to add just one, to go with Matisse's dancers (in the Met; 2nd floor, modern art section).

George was getting thoroughly fed up. He had Ann holding his left hand, which was normal, them being married, and Mary holding his right, which was also normal but unusual behaviour in front of Ann. Ann's hand was clasped firmly above his; a possessive hand, pulling him around across the dance. Mary; now, Mary's hand was warm and soft, promising later tendernesses with the subtle shifts as he led her round, her light step leaping to his. And Fred; well, Fred was his normal self; comforting and jolly and unbothered with his status as person added to make the circle large enough to paint properly. Fred could be pretty dumb; a big labrador of a man, all happiness and no brains, but always pleased to see you, sometimes so much so that he knocked over the furniture and drooled on the carpet. George retracted that thought immediately; it wasn't so much that he couldn't imagine Fred drooling, more that the thought of Mary's husband spilling bodily fluids, and especially spilling them anywhere near Mary both disgusted and spurned him, although he couldn't resist staring at the corner of Fred's mouth (open slightly with the sheer concentration of the dance) just to check.

No drool. George wondered how the painter was getting on. They'd all been switching this way and that on-and-off for hours now, letting the great man (Mary's friend, of course) catch the right angles and feel for the right shadows. Or shades. Or shapes. Or something anyway; George knew nothing about art apart from: it was a good way to interest women, and all artists were randy bastards who really ought to be contained when they weren't doing their other essential job of livening up parties (noticably never thrown by themselves) and making everyone else feel more sensible. They were probably due a break soon. George had noticed during the dance that the painter only really used yellow at the start of the dance, and switched to other colours pretty quickly. This fact was only really important if you had seen the painting, even for the second before the painter distracted you away and talked about flowers. Fred's chair (blue) was there; the garden (not yellow), the sky.

George wondered about the painter and Fred. The large yellow streak to the left of the painting had more than a hint of Fred the labrador. And then the chair. Fred had sat chatting to the painter; lounging in that added-gravity way that large men do on vacation, as though the effort of staying upright for so many months had to be balanced by an equal effort of stillness once sat down. But why, once gravity had been overcome, had the painter left the chair? It wasn't a photograph, there was no effort in calling a maid to move it: why the chair? One-two-hop; one-two-hop; George started to feel a little better about the possibilities of Fred. Perhaps, just perhaps there was something more here; maybe a reason to talk long and deep into the night with Mary; possibly an excuse to console her tearful nights with a manly shoulder (as he would gently explain to Ann before shouldering that terrible duty). George moved his right fingers a little, flexing them gently against Mary's wrist. She responded in kind, and he gave a little hop, a spring of joy. The painter picked up his yellow brush.

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