Chapter 7. Academy

  I spent a few days working on a painting. It was commissioned by a local ambassador. The painting was to depict a Greek seascape in the splendour of a sunny day, with many colourful little houses climbing a hill at the foot of an ultramarine sea. The client expressed a number of wishes, but the main one was realism! "The painting must look so alive that everyone feels as if they are on that shore," he said confidently.
The weight of responsibility to the local diplomat loomed over me like a shadow. Here my imagination was sharpened into a strict framework, and what pressed me most was that a mistake was unacceptable - the Ambassador expected perfection! "In this situation, it shouldn't just be a beautiful seasccape, but a painting that captures his imagination!"  - I said to myself. I realised that this was not an easy task. And the more I thought about it, the harder it was to get to work.

I stretched a large snow-white canvas and left it on an easel at the back of the room. I didn't dare go near it yet. For about an hour I just sat in the studio, staring into the void and thinking. But the huge white blur kept boring me with its gaze. I looked hesitantly towards the easel. The light from the window fell obliquely on the canvas, and its surface glowed, filling the whole studio with a soft, diffuse light. I looked at it and at that moment it seemed to me that nothing could be more perfect than an untouched white canvas: pure, like an infinite space of possible variations! As long as the brush did not break this purity, anything could be born here: from a painting of a raging ocean mercilessly dragging an old fishing boat to the bottom, to a golden dawn softly illuminating the tops of vines. Or perhaps a girl of ten stroking a ginger kitten on the veranda of her house.
My unbridled imagination painted everything on the canvas except those colourful houses. They remained stubbornly outside my thoughts. "What archness!" - I thought, accusing my imagination of treachery. "Not only do I have to paint these colourful houses so realistically that each one is unique, but at the same time I have to assemble this whole colourful kaleidoscope into a coherent and harmonious composition. But how to do that?" The solution didn't come.
My hand didn't dare to move and disturb the snow-white perfection. The world seemed frozen in silent expectation...
 

I hadn't left the house for a few days. I only looked out of the open window once in a while to get a breath of fresh air and to remind myself that there was life outside the walls. I could hear the chirping of the swallows, who were apparently still tirelessly nesting. And the days were glorious: soft, warm, windless and enveloped in the stillness of the sleepy air with the scent of flowering herbs. Every now and then, like spies, their currents poured into the house through the window. Nature was beckoning me, and the temptation to go out and enjoy the festivities of spring was great! But I knew I couldn't resist going outside. And work would be put on hold again. The uncertainty of the new painting kept me firmly within the walls of the house.

  The food supplies were running out. My mind was a bit foggy, but I needed the energy to work. I looked in the kitchen at lunchtime and found two cans of tinned tuna in the cupboard that I had been saving. There was also a packet of toasted bread, eggs, a bunch of fresh herbs, a cucumber and a bag of dried figs (I was saving them for dessert).
I boiled two eggs and made a quick sandwich: I crumbled slices of tuna and placed them on a toasted multigrain bread, topped the tuna with thin, translucent slices of cucumber, and sprinkled the sandwich with finely chopped parsley. The smell of fresh herbs reminded me of spring again. The lunch was simple, but I ate it quickly and with gusto. I immediately felt a surge of energy. My mood lifted and I went back to the workshop feeling encouraged.

  I painted some small gouache sketches on paper. It looked good: there was a easiness and a certain lightness that is characteristic of gouache and that I wanted to retain in the oil painting. I was pleased that the work was progressing little by little in this way. (look how it was)

  I was sitting there sketching, brush in hand, and suddenly it hit me! The solution had come to me! "Eureka!" I exclaimed, jumping out of my chair.

 The epiphany came to me when I remembered how, in my third year at the Academy of Painting, my fellow students and I went on a plein air trip to the island of Capri in Italy. Oh my God, what a trip that was! I'll never forget it. Which makes it all the more surprising that it was my first trip abroad. And not just anywhere, but to Italy! Just like now, I remember my first sensations, goose bumps. Our group consisted of seven students and a painting teacher, Mr Crutch. He was a very typical example of a real artist. You could see it not in his appearance but in his behaviour: dreamy, thoughtful and incredibly absent-minded, the kind of person who spends hours looking for his glasses when they are on his nose. But there was a peculiar charm about him. His bulky figure was always the centre of attention wherever he appeared. He had slightly bulging eyes. In between lessons over tea, he once mentioned that he had a certain visual defect called astigmatism. This is characterised by an uneven curvature of the hemispheres of the cornea. This meant that he saw everything a little distorted and that, logically, he could not be a painter. But, strangely enough, he was a first-rate painter! He always worked in a dashing manner, wielding a broad brush, always at arm's length from the easel because his big bulging belly prevented him from getting close to the canvas. And he was not only a masterful artist, but also a teacher of God! I learned so much from him during those years! He gave me a rich base of knowledge and faith in myself as an artist, for which I have always been grateful!

  Our plane landed in Italy in the late evening. It was already dark and the night shrouded all the vistas we encountered on the way from the airport to the hotel in mystery. It was after midnight when we reached our rooms and settled in. But Mr Crutch had sternly warned us that we would have little time for sleep and rest, as we would be going out for a plein air the following morning at 8am sharp and he would be waiting for us in the lobby.

  The hotel we were staying in was a small, very cosy one, built in the classic Italian style: the two-storey building was painted yellow cadmium, and the balconies were lined with snow-white plaster balusters.

  I will never forget the first time I saw the Mediterranean!
I woke up that morning to the sound of my alarm, set for 7 o'clock, exactly one hour before the general meeting in the lobby. The sun was already shining through the window and its warm light penetrated the white veil, making the room soft and diffuse. I got up and opened the balcony door: the morning sun was flooding the whole track and I blinked at the brightness of the light. When I opened my eyes again after a second, I saw a fascinating sight I had never seen before: many small islands peeking out of the endless blue sea, with millions of diamonds glittering on its surface! The yachts were sailing lazily with the wind, as if at the mercy of fate, with no destination in sight. There was no horizon in sight: the sea was melting in the morning gentle embrace with the sky. The soft, almost imperceptible sound of the waves caressed my ears. Ah, that smell! The scent of the sea breeze immediately turned my head! And then I realised I was in love: I was in love with the Mediterranean!

  This love settled in my heart and from that moment on it became my compass, always pointing towards the sea, wherever I was! It was then that the spark of a dream was born in my soul that would one day burst into flames in Greece!

 Stunned by the beauty of the sea, inspired and excited, I quickly gathered my pochade box and ran down the stairs to the foyer where Mr Crutch should have been waiting for us. But to our surprise, he wasn't there.....
For about an hour we looked for Mr Crutch all over the hotel, knocked on his room and rang the telephone. But it was no use. He seemed to have disappeared.
After a while, one of the hotel staff told us that he had seen our teacher leaving the hotel towards the sea at dawn.
When we heard this, the whole group ran to the sea. And we saw the following scene: Mr Crutch was sitting calmly on the beach, holding a popiroso and looking at his two fresh etudes that he had managed to paint at dawn. And the most interesting thing was that he had forgotten all about our meeting! One of the boys stopped and, wiping the sweat from his brow, exclaimed: "Mr Crutch! We've been looking for you all morning!". Crutch, approaching us with a serene look on his face, blew out a puff of smoke, completely unaware of the situation. Then he hesitated, scratched the back of his half bald head and said: " What happened? I was just out for a walk. The morning light on the sea was too beautiful to miss. So, where are we going today?". Here we all burst out laughing! Mr Crutch just shrugged his shoulders, as the whole situation was quite normal for us. He happily packed his things and we went to the next town to paint en plein air.

  When we arrived at the site, we saw that at the foot of the sea, rows of multi-coloured houses were climbing up the high, almost sheer cliffs, like garlands on a heavily decorated Christmas tree: lemon yellow, pink, terracotta and all shades of ochre were crowded together. It looked impressive! Our group set up on the beach and we set about painting the view. I took a small piece of primed cardboard and got to work. I painted quickly, forgetting everything else in the world. I was so caught up in my emotions! I was short of oxygen from excitement and my breathing was interrupted from time to time. My thoughts disappeared and gave way to my feelings.

  My painting was done in two hours! It was a study painted in a single breath. Looking at my painting, Mr Crutch immediately noted the extraordinary liveliness and skill of my work, and the ease with which I had created unity in the multicolour of the architecture. He scrutinised every line, squinting his slightly bulging eyes for a moment. Then, with quiet admiration in his voice, he said: "Nicole, you surprise me. The sea clearly does you good. The shadows you've used bring all the colours together, despite their diversity. That's a rare skill, you know. - He went on. You've caught the movement of the light, fading and reappearing in each line. It speaks of your attention to detail, Nicole." I couldn't help smiling at his generous praise. Thank you, Mr Crutch. It was as if it was in the same breath. You once said that the sea was inspiring. Now I know what you meant," I replied excitedly. He nodded gently and, looking out at the sea, added thoughtfully: "The sea always inspires those who are willing to listen to it. It speaks not in words, but in light and shadow, in waves and wind. And you seem to have managed to hear its whispers.
Sometimes I think you speak in riddles," I said with a smile, catching his philosophical attitude. Crutch smiled and winked, 'Well, Nicole, isn't art a great mystery? It's just important to feel it and let your hand follow your heart."

Ah, what wonderful days we had in Italy and what bright memories we have left: a carefree time given to us to learn and create! I remember that after the trip, the Faculty Committee wanted to donate the Italian study to the Academy Fund. (At the end of each term, the committee selected the best works of the students). But then I insisted on keeping it as a reminder of the wonderful trip and donated another, also very successful, painting to the fund. The memories seemed to come alive in my mind and gave me a burst of new energy.
But the most important thing was that I had kept the sketch ever since and had brought it with me. I was almost certain that it was in one of the cardboard boxes that had been piled up in the living room in front of the old-fashioned dresser with the big upright silver mirror, unopened since I had arrived at the house. I rushed into the living room, sat down on the floor opposite the dresser, and began to open the boxes one by one. One of them had 'My Academy' written on it. The box had been sealed for several years and I hadn't opened it since I moved to Greece. It was like a box of the past. With a knife, I carefully cut the tape that had been wrapped around the box. Inside I found many old things, now completely useless, that I hadn't dared to throw away since then: each of them held a memory of events and people. And how could I part with them? In a way, they were all part of my past life. There I found notebooks with notes on art history, joking notes that my classmates and I used to write to each other during lectures, some old anatomy books, and various knick-knacks. Among them were my charcoal sketches of people and animals on thin paper that had yellowed considerably over the years. There too, but in a separate folder, were sketches of my face, drawn by my fellow students. Admittedly, most of them were more like caricatures.
(For some reason no one has ever been able to get my facial features right, and oddly enough, not even Mr Crutch).
And then, at the very bottom, behind some old notebooks, I saw an edge of cardboard. It was that Italian study: bright, juicy, bold and incredibly light! But the most important thing was how skilfully I had combined the bright houses with common shadows, so that it all looked not at all fragmentary, but absolutely united and harmonious! I silently ran my fingers over the rough surface of the etude, feeling the voluminous strokes of oil paint and remembering every movement of my brush. The artist's memory for such moments is impeccable!
"There! I have found it! I will use this as a model for my new painting," I said excitedly, breathing a sigh of relief. It was obvious that a solution had been found!
I was so happy and in awe that I even kissed the dusty sketch and held it to my heart.
  I was about to put my things back in the box when my eyes fell on a small photo album, covered in bordeaux leatherette. It contained photographs from my years at the Academy. It's hard to believe, but in those days mobile phones didn't have cameras, so we took pictures with our cameras and had the best ones printed in a photo studio.

  I picked up the album and slowly turned the pages. My past burst from the dusty pages like a genie from a bottle.
The first picture was taken in an academic studio: we were hard at work at our easels while a naked young model posed for us. Her voluptuous body and soft forms reminded us of Danae on Titian's canvas. Ah, I remember how our boys' eyes lit up at the sight of her young body. Their blood would boil and they could barely hide it.
At such times, Mr Crutch used to say: "We artists, like doctors, study human anatomy. There can be no shame or embarrassment!" However, despite his seemingly cold and sober approach, my fellow students and I noticed that at such moments his gaze would become languid, like that of a contented cat, and he would involuntarily behave too emotionally. As for me, I felt a slight embarrassment when I looked at the completely naked bodies of the sitters (and we drew men as well as women). In time, however, I realised that the ability to overcome this feeling was simply a matter of habit.

 "God, how young we were then! Only when I look at these photos do I realise how long ago it was, like in a past life," I thought. I was overcome with nostalgia.
In the next picture in the album, I saw a mock scene: my friend, a fellow student named Suzy, and I were standing near a butophoric skeleton. I, dressed in a bright blue sweater, pretended to be the teacher and pointed to its atomic chest. I looked serious, but there was laughter in my eyes. I also wore large square glasses for added significance and imagery. Next to Suzy, a petite girl with black curly hair, obviously couldn't hide her smile, because someone in the background was grimacing. That someone was red-haired Alex, from the senior year, but we didn't all call him by his first name, and he was better known among the students as Moustache (he was trying to grow a moustache shaped like Salvador Dali's. But in red color such a moustache looked quite funny and we always joked with him in a friendly way.
Remembering those moments, the smile never left my face. Six years of studying at the art academy seemed like a lifetime to me.
I turned the page of the album and suddenly my heart clenched like a hedgehog that rolls up into a ball at the sight of danger. On a slightly faded photo of a warm golden autumn, in the courtyard of the academy, where teachers often smoked, stood two: it was me and ..., and He ....
I broke into a cold sweat and my hands were shaking.

I'm a young, slender girl in a light lavender knit dress, clear blue eyes full of naiveté under thick black mascaraed lashes. My wavy blonde hair is pulled back into a ponytail, and my pale face is framed by blonde curls that have barely been touched by the sun. And he... young, taller than me, his muscular torso clearly visible through his tight-fitting black t-shirt, his handsome features and his wolf-like eyes. He has his head tilted down slightly, looking down at me. Those eyes seem to look into the deepest corners of your soul to find your weaknesses. His hands, the hands of a true sculptor: strong, wiry, reddish with a network of blue veins running through them. He held me tightly around my slender waist with both hands, as if I were his property. No, I looked more like prey in his arms, as if I were in the strong clutches of a real beast.
I leaned my head lightly on his shoulder and a bright, sparkling smile spread across my face. But only a very sensitive person could see the pain in my eyes.
I remember Suzy often saying to me, "Nicole, you're always so radiant, floating so joyfully and lightly, just like a butterfly!"
Yes, that's how it seemed to a lot of people. No one, not a single person, guessed what I was really hiding behind that smile.
But who could I admit it to if I couldn't bear to admit it to myself? It seemed impossible to show my weakness to others. In moments of despair, I often asked, "Why, God, why is this happening to me?" And I never found an answer.

He was a young teacher who taught a sculpture class once a week on our course. Oh my God! My first experience and so much disappointment. The pain was so intense that I haven't been able to even think of saying his name since. He, just He - nameless memories that for years I had tried to hide in the farthest and darkest corridors of my memory. And I thought I had succeeded. But the memories that this photograph brought to life caused me such real physical pain.

I was a victim who had fallen into a trap - a trap of games, cruelty and endless manipulation.
A girl's first experience is entering the adult world, and that world is created by her first man.
Could I have known the horror of this relationship? Could I have realised that it wasn't my fault while he was trying to make me feel that way? But as I later realised, influence and suggestion are very powerful things. In his hands I was a lump of clay, soft, malleable, naive. His strong hands ruthlessly shaped what he wanted. In his final creation there was to be no will, no respect and no love for myself. According to his insidious plan, I was to become nothing more than a submissive, weak, will-less, dependent creature.

Sometimes I wanted to run away, to disappear, to die. But I was trapped, trapped in his endless manipulations. He knew exactly which strings to pull.
I sat on the cold floor in the middle of the living room in front of the vanity, my whole body shaking with fear. I was in pain, but there were no tears in my eyes. After going through the ordeal and overcoming that terror, I promised myself that I would never fall into such a trap again, that no one would ever dare to manipulate me.
“That's enough!” I said nervously and slammed the album shut. I closed my eyes for a moment, took a deep breath, then lifted my head and looked at myself in the mirror opposite. I wanted to look myself in the eye and be sure that that young frightened girl was gone, that she was gone, decayed, dissolved into oblivion along with the past. I wanted to believe that I was a different person now, strong-willed and brave.
I looked at myself in the mirror: I hadn't changed much, except that my hair was much lighter from the hot Greek sun and had a nice wheat color. It seemed to me that I had become more beautiful: my face had become charming, my figure was nicely rounded, and I had a golden tan on my cheeks, which effectively emphasized the brightness of my blue eyes.

I took a deep breath, fixed the curls that had fallen carelessly on my forehead with my hand and whispered to myself: "Now you have a completely different life, you are in Greece and the sea is always near."
I thought of the sea and the image of Leonidas appeared in my mind. In a moment it was as if I was wrapped in a warm, invisible blanket. The pain of the memories began to fade.
"In a few minutes, Leonidas had managed to show me the kind of care, the kind of tenderness, that I had never experienced in the few years that I had been with Him. But why had I run away from the beach that day? I felt so good, but I had the feeling that something was stopping me. Could it be the habit of constant fear I'd lived with for so many years, or the fear of trusting again?
Ah, I wish so much that I could see him again! I know he's probably in his tavern every day, but Leonidas doesn't know where to find me. But, maybe he wants to see me as much as I do?"

I looked in the mirror. I could breathe easier. I wasn't looking at a scared little girl. I was looking at a young woman - strong, confident, free. I whispered to myself, "You've changed. Now your life is the sea, Greece and maybe love."
The thought of Leonidas warmed me like the gentle warm setting sun. "I'm going to his tavern the other day," I thought. - I feel we must meet again!"

 Read Chapter 8 ➔