Red Brushstroke

The bus was full the day Rosie decided to visit the museum. Her art professor had encouraged the whole class to go while the special exhibit on the Renaissance was being displayed. She made her way down the jostling bus aisle and, with just a glance, seemed to ask, “Can I sit here?” She then withdrew into herself, plugging in her headphones to drown out the loud conversation coming from four rows back.  

Her eyes looked out, not seeing anything. She was only trying to pass from one place to another as seamlessly as possible, without having to interact with the world much. But the child sitting across the aisle stood and pointed at her. No, not at her, through her. There was something outside. The bus had come to stop at a red light and there they were: what must have been 200 people sitting on the normally busy steps of a large government building. Their signs stirred nothing special inside of her. “Peace,” “equality,” “freedom,” “representation,” among other lofty abstractions, made their appearances written on signs that swayed and bobbed. She had seen these ideals claimed by all kinds of groups before. 

With her music thumping in her ears, she saw a cascade of skittles slip by her feet. She looked to see the child, back in his mother’s arms, watching the lost candy sadly. The bus started again and she looked out one more time and caught sight of a sign painted in big, red letters. The song playing in her ears read the sign for her with shocking clarity: “Pay attention!”  

She blinked and a confused smile broke out across her face. What a strange synchronism. She rewound the song and listened again to her happy coincidence, watching as the sign drew further away and disappeared into the mass. 

In the museum, Rosie allowed herself some slow moments. With her classes and her job, there was never enough time. But here, she took her steps carefully, considering the words “serenely” and “smoothly” and allowing her mind to make loose, dubious connections that just felt right. “Attention must be paid,” she thought to herself, wondering where the line had originated (was it a television show or a play?) and, more importantly, what deserved the attention. Her consciousness wandered and she decided to try and settle on the next painting she passed. 

A crease formed on her brow when she recognized the painting in question as one of the nondescript portraits that she had never spared more than a second on. It was here, though, hung in a gilded frame against a fashionably lit panel. She vowed to find the merit.  

She stood for a long time. Around her, the room shifted like a tide and the white noise of shoes scuffing the floor and backpacks zipping and fabric brushing against fabric captured something of the natural world in its hum. She was reminded of the family trip she’d taken to the Grand Canyon. Once the initial incomprehension had passed, she’d tried hard to concentrate on the scale of what was before her and got the same feeling of vertigo she got when counting stars or feeling a strong wind. 

The painting had a description placard by its side listing the artist, the medium, an approximate year of origin. But it was the brushstrokes, which could still be made out, that made her feel faint. The woman who had sat for this painting 500 years ago was now nameless and Rosie felt a twinge of heartache. Although the painting had made its way into preservation, she hoped that there had been a sense of joy in its creation. She hoped that the painter had enjoyed his tools and the sitter had enjoyed the transformation of her likeness. It occurred to Rosie that if that was not the case, the painting served no purpose at all. 

A loud rustling of footsteps could be heard approaching from down the hall. The sound of many rubber heels served as a backdrop to an authoritative voice inviting them “into this latter period of the Renaissance.” The group filled the room and Rosie stepped dutifully nearer the wall while people crowded around her whispering their ‘excuse me’s’ and trapping her near the portrait. 

The docent let her voice ring loudly, echoing against the high ceilings, explaining that around the room they could find portraiture characteristic of the 15th and 16th centuries. Rosie looked into the face of the pale, young woman done in oil. Her face was wide and empty, her mouth pinched and just barely turned up. A distinct ringlet draped over her collarbone, continued down, and was lost in the folds of her dress.  

She listened back to the conversations happening around her. 

“...somewhere in Japan...” 

“But the blue didn’t look the same as before...” 

“...whistled faster and better than her mom...” 

“...chair irritates my lower back...”  

She smiled, pleased, and looked up at the grand woman in front of her to see if she was also tickled, but found no company in the wan smile. The docent went on about how impressionism had influenced neo-classicism had influenced neo-impressionism had influenced modernism had influenced postmodernism had influenced poststructuralism had influenced... and Rosie wondered what had become of all the people. This trim, simplified version of art in the world’s history was being orated so surely by the prim woman and the number of people in the room made Rosie’s head spin. Surely, someone had done a painting that could be classed as impressionist before the term had ever existed? What of the painters that had never been recognized, who had never quite fit the criterion, or even the painters who had never been given the opportunity to paint? Finally, the crowd started thinning and Rosie felt betrayed by the oil painting. What women were hidden behind this female form? Millions of lives had passed away, largely undocumented, because they were not rich enough or high ranking enough or pretty enough to be acknowledged and memorialized in a portrait.  

She turned from the nameless woman, the only painting she’d really seen. Her imagination sputtered trying to conceive of the lives lived and the moments in those lives, like the stars splashed over the heavens. 

The bus was late. Rosie’s mind circled thinking over forgotten lives, missed moments, people deserving of recognition, and then – Death of a Salesman, she remembered, mumbling to herself, “attention must be paid.” She began to walk. When she made it to the steps, the number of people there had increased. She scanned the crowd, searching for the sign that had first caught her attention, but couldn’t find it. The steps were completely covered in bodies now and the group had grown to cover the walkway to the building and spilled out onto the well-manicured lawns. 

Rosie began to feel awkward. She understood it was a sit-in, but she didn’t know what for and didn’t know where she belonged in all of it. The crowd seemed impenetrable, as if surrounded by some thin, but necessarily hermetic film. She wavered along the outskirts, close, but still on the edge of an important decision. 

An ambulance screamed passed, it’s red and white lights casting a strange, supernatural attitude on the scene. The bodies in front of her worked in tandem like a flock of birds, reacting with keen sensitivity to their environment. Rosie watched one woman’s face as she followed the course of the ambulance and then closed her eyes, bowed her head, and held her clutched hands tightly in front of her. 

A lump formed in Rosie’s throat. She stepped over an imaginary threshold and took her seat among the rest of them and, speaking to whoever would listen, asked, “Could you tell me what’s going on?”