The Artist

I recently saw a painting that reminded me of an artist who lived in the woods at the far end of the street where I lived with my parents. I was always vehemently told not to venture into those woods, which, naturally, piqued my curiosity endlessly. Further stimulating my adventurous nature, I heard people, neighbors, talk about him. His name was Jacques. They said he was a “mad artist,” crazy, spooky, and mean, and he had a vicious dog, a big Doberman, who he kept tied to a tree with a very long rope so that no one could come near. I knew that part wasn’t true because, unbeknownst to my parents or anyone else, I spent hours in those woods and never saw a dog or heard any barking.

As I recall, “Jacques” had a very unique artistic technique, not what these days is called a “modern” artist, not “abstract” or “impressionist” or any other art form of which I admittedly know little. His was, in my description, a “rampant realism,” “imaginary movement,” or “not so still life” if one can imagine such an art form.

When I was a child of nine or ten years old, I used to sneak into those woods and watch Jacques for hours as I stood unnoticed among the shadows of huge trees in dappled sunlight at the window of the run-down wooden shack that was his studio behind a larger, and quite lovely, wood and brick house. I was always captivated watching him and was especially excited when he began a new painting.  

I thought it funny that every time I saw Jacques, he was dressed in the same wrinkled, red, paint-splotched, long-sleeved shirt and baggy black pants, which he continually tugged at with his left hand as they slid down over his big belly while he confronted a large blank canvas propped on his easel.  

When he began a new painting, he always seemed to have an angry scowl on his unshaven face. With a pallet knife he would splash a wad of thick oil paint, usually flesh-colored or tan, onto the canvas with almost startling force and then stand squarely in front of the canvas and stare at it, for as long as ten minutes, sometimes longer, as if by doing so something would suddenly spring to life on its face. Then, subtly, his expression would change from angry to deep concentration as if his whole being was somehow pulled inside himself and the outside world disappeared; then he began to work.

In retrospect, it was like watching a hilarious, choreographed, madcap ballet, as with the pallet knife in his right hand, he would hurriedly slosh that initial wad of paint around into a free-form shape, not quite round or oval, square or oblong, moving like a madman, arms waving back and forth, and thick strands of his long black hair whipping across his face. He would step back, twirl around, and then smear different colors onto/into the shape: a dot of red in the center, a smudge of black in a corner, then blue, yellow, green—on the red, on the black, seemingly at random. Every time he changed from one color to another, he would hitch his pants up over his belly with his free hand. Sometimes, he would stop, go to a corner of the room to a little refrigerator, and, not bothering to wash his hands, extract a sandwich and a drink of some kind, which he would consume while standing in front of his canvas. When he finished eating, he would wipe his mouth with his shirt sleeve and begin to paint again, as though he had never stopped. I was fascinated.

Though, from prior experience, I always knew something interesting was coming, my young eyes at those moments, saw nothing recognizable on the canvas during the frenzied hours of creation, so mesmerized was I by Jacques’ frantic yet complete immersion in what he was doing until finally, after all those hours, he would step back from the canvas, stand squarely in front of his creation with his head cocked to one side, contemplating it and then, if satisfied, he would abruptly pick up a small, thin, stylus from the mass of paint tubes and odd-sized brushes and implements on the table beside the easel and, with an uncharacteristically slow and graceful flourish, he would sign, or rather, engrave, his name into the thick paint in the lower right-hand corner of the canvas—“Jacques Q.” I never found out what the “Q” stood for.  

Afterward, he would circle the easel three times, look at the painting again and then move to the side, make a half-turn, and make a dramatic, almost Shakespearian bow, to an invisible audience as if he had been watched during the entire insane period of creation of what now unbelievably, was a perfect portrait of a familiar face of a celebrity or politician, simply a random person, or perhaps a child or an animal—with a lively, animated sparkle in the eyes that made me laugh, or a tear I was sure I actually saw roll down a cheek. Other times, it was a landscape of flowers and trees that seemed to sway in an invisible breeze I could almost feel, or a dog running down a street, saliva dripping over the bone held in its mouth. 

I had watched him go through this entire procedure, from start to finish, on more occasions than I can count, each time astounded by the amazing result of his precision. But there was one time, actually, the last time I watched him, as he stepped away from the canvas, I was completely confounded to see that the figure in the painting stared back at me, like a perfect mirror of me in my current disbelief, so clearly reflected on the canvas, it was chilling. How could he have captured what was not present until that moment when he didn’t even know I was there?  

Or did he?