Painting the Name

“Sorry, sir, but this is an exclusive night for invited art society members only. I have to ask you to leave.“ 

Arthur's heart stopped. 

“But I am…” he tried to mumble, but the gallery director did not let him.

“I am really sorry, sir, but as I have said, this event is for invited gents and gals, not for people like you.” 

Arthur couldn't say anything and turned into a rainy street. He checked once more to see if someone would recognize him, but nobody even looked at him. It was not the first night he was not recognized. Blending into the crowd like an ordinary guy had become routine; hearing applause for his name while remaining invisible to others, or even making speeches while everyone awkwardly guessed he probably was some friend of the exhibiting artist was his everyday life. But this was the first night he was thrown out from his gallery opening.

While walking through the rainy streets and passing luxury cars of his art colleagues, he thought about his situation. How could his art be admired without recognizing the artist? 

Arthur came home without an answer, grabbed a bottle of wine from the fridge, and sat on the couch. He looked at his phone, hoping somebody would call him and ask where he was. But from his point of view, the world didn’t need to know or even recognize him. 

They all solely cared about his paintings. Although they were admirable, he himself was not regarded as such. With this thought, he fell asleep, and the bottle of wine fell from his hand on the old rug. He didn’t hear it, as he was already dreaming.

Arthur was invited to his funeral. He put on his best suit and went right to the church. The place was full of people, but nobody stood around the casket. Not a soul mourned. They all stood next to the walls, looking at the hanged paintings he created. Nobody looked at him. He went to the casket. At least he was going to mourn himself. But when he got to the casket, he found a body without a face. This was his first dream.

Waking up sweating, it was already noon. Checking messages revealed no calls or texts. The gallery event search yielded no results. No one missed him; there were fans of his work, but none sought him out.

He still tried to shake his nightmare, as it was unusual to remember dreams, but this one stuck with him. Was this how his life would go? Will he be applauded for his work but not praised? Will he die alone without anyone ever thinking about him again?

He cleared around his apartment and thought about his new piece. What more could he do? What can he paint to force them to recognize him? He looked into the mirror in the hallway. His reflection looked sad and miserable, just an ordinary guy with a mid-life crisis. But this embodiment of mediocrity gave him realization. He has to paint a self-portrait.

Without hesitation, Arthur went into his studio. While setting up the canvas, the choice of brush and colors was made carefully. The idea of self-portrait never came to his mind because of dissatisfaction with his body. But that couldn’t stop him now. This portrait will be his masterpiece. He carefully stroked his brush and decorated the canvas of his latest work with precise movement. Painting was not just a way to make a living, it was the only passion he had, the only thing he loved. And he mastered the craft.

Countless hours passed. He knew that art should not be rushed and did not realize how much time it took when he made the final stroke of his brush. After placing the brush in a glass of water, several steps back were taken to admire the magnum opus. But the only thing he could see was just a boring painting of a totally ordinary guy. Arthur was horrified. This never happened to him. He was able to evoke awe with the most straightforward painting. But this seemed so normal and shallow. The room was hastily abandoned, escaping the depiction of blandness in the artwork. He could not look at the avatar of depression in his picture. Arthur sat on his sofa and cried. After a while, he fell asleep, tired of all this misery. And he fell back into the dream.

This dream took place in the art gallery where the artist was surrounded by his paintings. They were colorful and full of life. Art critics were standing in amazement. Arthur went to talk with them, but he hit the glass wall. He realized he was trapped in a showcase. Mortified, started banging on the glass, but nobody heard it. He then fell on his knees and begged for mercy. Suddenly, the art director came to him. 

“Please, let me out,” cried Arthur.

“Don’t worry, sir. We will destroy your showcase.” said the art director with a smirk.

“What do you mean destroy?” Arthur asked while his heart pounded.

“This is a fine gallery, suited only for pieces of excellent quality. There is no place for mediocrity, hence no place for you.” 

This was his second dream.

Recognizing the need to persist, Arthur promptly headed to the studio and dismantled the portrait. It was a mistake beyond repair. But he was sure he would not make this mistake again, so he started over. Precision marked his renewed effort, and the brush strokes attained a greater magnificence. A sense of vitality and determination propelled him forward. Work would only be stopped briefly, pausing for a few minutes to decide which color to choose next or switch his tools. But after his last stroke, he saw the ordinary painting as before. Without hesitation, Arthur obliterated the artwork once again, finding himself amidst shattered piles of canvas in the aftermath.

“What did I do wrong?” he asked himself repeatedly. Was he so mediocre that even his talent could not fix it? He grabbed a shard of his latest work. It could not be him, he thought. To create the best art in history, he must use the best instruments.

Tools and unused canvases were thrown into the trash in frustration. Hours were spent selecting new brushes and engaging in numerous conversations with art dealers to secure a canvas worthy of his entire personality. A week's end saw the creation of a new painting. It turned out to be the worst one yet.

Arthur burned it, but the picture was forever in his mind. Eating or contemplating anything else became impossible. How could his paintings capture the beauty of the world but not the beauty of himself?

A decision was made to alter his technique. Numerous books on art styles were purchased, and days were dedicated to learning fresh painting approaches.  He ate only in the moments of exhaustion when the whole world became grey for him. But it did not help. His paintings were still emblems of mediocrity, flawless but lifeless. Every day started by dripping brush in water and ended up putting the last tweezers in the box of art supplies as if every aspect of his artistic life was an effort to use the brush to cover the blandness of himself. 

Countless attempts lay scattered in the corner of his studio. But after his last effort, when he threw his paints on the wall, Arthur decided to stop it. Exhausted, he did not know the day of the week or even the month he lived in. He left the studio and sat on the couch. Arthur was looking at the wine stain on the carpet and was fascinated by how the spill could be more enthralling than his portraits. With this thought, exhaustion brought him to sleep, following a new dream.

Arthur was going upstairs between the clouds. He did not know why, but he wanted to see what was at the end. Each of his steps was determined as if it were strokes of the paintbrush. After what felt like an eternity, he climbed up and saw a golden gate with his old paintings. 

“Is this heaven?” He asked himself. 

“Yes, it is,” answered a woman in one of his pictures. 

Arthur breathed a sigh of relief. He went to the gate, but an invisible force stopped him.

“Who are you?” asked a woman.

“I am Arthur, I painted you.”

She rolled her eyes. “Don't lie to me. I don’t know you. Neither of us do.”

The other paintings began to murmur in agreement.

Arthur tried to argue back, but the clouds beneath him split, and he started falling.

“Nobody knows you. Nobody wants you here.” 

Arthur heard paintings chanting while he was falling.

This was his third dream.

The following months were a blur in his memory. He drove over a whole country, looking for new tools or ideas. After countless tries and at the cost of great fortune, the decision was made to create his own brushes and canvases. He stopped communicating with the world and started sleeping in his studio to begin painting immediately after waking up. The floor was entirely covered with destroyed images. His new work often ended by looking at the painting from an unusual angle, as if he hoped his mediocre work would turn into a masterpiece from the proper perspective. What was once his hobby became an obsession to overcome the blandness of his personality. He hated himself and the ordinary man in his portraits. When he wasn’t painting, he sat on his couch and stared at the wine stain on the carpet, challenging it to reveal its secret. This fascination resulted in many strange experiments when he tried to use wine instead of paints or cloth as a new canvas. Still, all experiments seemed to be swallowed up in the same monotonous brushstrokes of his nameless paintings.

Arthur did not know how long it took to go through all of his ideas of different painting techniques. He finished destroying the previous canvas made of the rug, looked at a mixture of destroyed creations, and could not think about one thing to free him from his misery. The walls of his once beautiful art room were covered in paints he threw around. His exhaustion did not let him even cry. After some time, he finally stood up and left the room, decided to leave this place of turmoil forever. In the hallway, his reflection in the mirror greeted him—the same mirror that inspired the idea of creating a self-portrait. But now, the mirror did not show the ordinary man. In the mirror, the man's reflection had morphed from mediocrity into a pitiful wreck. What was once an unremarkable visage now resembled a broken husk, bearing the scars of months devoted to his art. The shattered reflection portrayed a physical decay and the emotional wreckage of relentless creativity.

After months of feeling frustrated, his emotion evolved into rage. With a closed fist, he angrily started hitting the mirror as if it were one of his canvases, not feeling the pain, only the wrath. It took only seconds before the last shard fell on the floor.

Arthur looked at his hands, covered in blood, fascinated by the crimson color. The strands of blood were reassuring and poetic, as if the shards could create something more intimate that he could not. The feeling that a single drop of blood gave him was more powerful than anything he ever did. Arthur did not hesitate, for he finally found his muse. 

Rushing back to the studio while crossing the ruined pieces of the ordinary, he set up a new canvas and dipped the brush into his wounds. Obsession took control over him as he felt like a commoner looking at the work of the greatest masters. With the quick realization that there was not enough blood, Arthur stabbed himself several times to produce new crimson paint. Weakness and exhaustion wracked his body, but his relentlessness gave him strength to finish his most incredible creation. With only pauses to collect more paint, he worked with passion driven to perfection. 

After his last paintbrush stroke, he took a few steps back to admire the beauty of his new creation. There was no mediocrity, no ordinary. This painting was a masterpiece, a flawless self-portrait worth all the suffering. Arthur could finally go to sleep to see the dream again.

He was watching the whole city from the sky. The entire artist community admired his painting, and the galleries fought for the right to display it. News reporters talked about it as the greatest creation in modern art history, while the front page of every newspaper told the story about a painter who created the best self-portrait at the sacrifice of his life. 

This was Arthur's last dream, the only dream that came true.

Nobody ever forgot about the painting. But not a single soul mentioned or remembered his name.