L'astuce

“Rage.”

“Rage?”

“Rage.”

“Hmmm.”

“Don’t you see it?” Janessa asked her twin sister Jane.

“Mmmm no, no,” said Jane. “Looks to me more like… Sorrow.”

“Sorrow?!”

“Yeah! Sorrow. You see all the different shades of blue here, and some of it, smudged—“

“Yeah, but then you have these sharp reds, which I feel like jump out at you much more than the blues…”

“Mmm yeah, I guess,” said Jane before walking a few feet over to the next painting. “What about this one?”

“Oh that’s easy. Just looks like a nice family enjoying a peaceful, chill day out at the beach,” said Janessa.

“Hmmm…” Jane squinted her eyes and rested her chin on her in the cup of her left thumb and index finger.

“What?” asked Janessa. 

“Peace? You really see peace in this picture?”

“Oh my God, Jane, seriously?! How do you not see peace? What else could it possibly be?!”

Jane paused.

“I see a family…defeated. And disconnected.”

Janessa raised her eyebrow.

“Yeah, for real! Look!” Her sister exclaimed. “Look at how the older lady is sitting over here, kind of looking down, while the kid pitifully builds the sandcastle by himself over there. And then, you got the teenager stereotypically in her own world, scrolling on her phone. And finally, this man and woman off to the side, standing apart, looking in different directions. She’s facing the ocean while he’s looking like he’s headed for the boardwalk, without her—“

“Without her?! They're standing together, for crying out loud!!” Janessa’s voice raised, as nearby gallery visitors briefly glanced in their direction.

“No, look, Janessa. Their feet aren’t even pointed in the same direction!”

“Oh, my God.”

“And… I mean, is this even a family? Can we even say these people are at the beach together?!”

“You’re a psycho,” said Janessa.

“I’m serious. Nothing about them looks like they are intentionally at the same place, at the same time.”

“Whatever, sis,” Janessa sighed, rolled her eyes, and walked up to the plaque beside it to read the name, author, and description of the work. “Candid Moments. J. L. Poe,” she says aloud and then looks at the painting again. “Hmm. Candid Moments.”

“Should be called Candid Stranger Moments.”

Janessa rolled her eyes again. “Wow. How we share the same DNA is beyond me.”

They walk another few feet to the next display.

“Hmmm,” they said simultaneously, nearly harmonizing.

“Okay, yeah, this is…” Janessa began.

“Different,” Jane completed her sister’s thought and then went right to look at the nearby plaque but found that it had the author’s name but no title or description. “Sienna Claremont,” she said.

They both paused for a few moments, trying to gather their thoughts. The oddest work either of them had ever seen, it was just white space within a large metal frame. No drawing, no paint, no shapes or lines. No color. Just white. And its frame.

“I think this artist is speaking to the…nothingness…of life,” Jane thoughtfully surmised.

“Nothingness? I think it speaks to all the things,” Janessa said confidently.

“All the things, Jane? There’s nothing there. It’s blank. It’s definitely supposed to represent nothingness,” her sister retorted.

“Jane, what color do you get when you combine all of the colors of a rainbow? White, right?”

“What? White in what world?!? If you combine all the colors, you get black!”

“No, if you combine all colors of light, you get white,” Janessa reiterated.

“Ohh, ‘all colors of white,;” Jane mocked her sister in a voice that still sounded just like her own. “No. That’s literally ridiculous.”

“It is not!!”

“It is so!! Look at this. It’s blank. Bare. Zero. Zilch. I think it shows a sort of emptiness which we all have. The inherent emptiness of life,” said Jane.

“No, it shows the fullness. All things being possible. No limitations or prescription. Being able to call your own shots, do things your own way!” said Janessa.

“Or maybe just being… Dead,” Jane said flatly.

“What?!?”

“Yes, the last stop. The final curtain call. What do you think they mean when you’re dying and they say you see a ‘white light’?”

“Oh, so now, it’s light,” said Janessa.

“Only the final kind,” said Jane. “The kind that signifies you’re no longer among the living.”

“You always think you know everything!!” Janessa’s eyes narrowed.

“Not everything, but definitely a lot!” Jane shot back. "Definitely more than you!!"

A brief moment of silence finally settled between them, until Janessa spoke again.

“Let’s ask that man what he thinks,” she said as she pointed to an older gallery visitor nearby.

“Okay, fine!” said Jane. “Umm excuse me, sir. Can you come here for a second?”

The older man walked over.

“What do you see in this piece of art here?” Jane asked him.

The man paused as he studied the framed piece.

As the unusually long pause eventually approached an uncomfortable full minute, both of the sisters looked at each other, both silently rethinking their decision to bring in this allegedly wise second opinion.

“Chaos,” he finally said, just as Jane was about to speak again.

The two sisters’ left eyebrows simultaneously raised as they reflected on his take.

“Chaos?” said Jane.

“Yes,” said the gentleman. “Don’t you think so?”

The sisters’ mirrored eyes squinted at the work and then back at him.

“See, it’s so much shown that you can’t see any of it,” he said as one of his hands motioned in the piece of art’s direction.

“I knew it!!” Janessa inserted. “See!! Everything! Like I said!!”

“Huh?” said the gentleman.

“I told her, it represents everything,” she said. “Openness. Possibility. All the things. Infinity. And beyond!”

“Mmmm not quite,” said the man. “Infinity, openness, and possibility suggest something positive. What I see here isn’t positive—”

“Ha!!” Jane said like a hard slap to her sister’s cheek. “I told you. Ain’t nothing positive about this. It’s blank, so it’s nothing—“

“No, no. Definitely not nothing,” interjected the man. “Many things. Too many things.”

“Too many things? What?” said Jane.

“Yeah, I don’t see that at all,” said her sister. “It’s definitely all the things.”

“No, nooo,” said the man. “You aren’t looking carefully. It’s chaos, disorder, mayhem. Just like the world. Just like life. It’s both the look and feeling of overwhelm. Of uncertainty. Unpredictability.”

The sisters stood quiet for a few moments, as they almost seemed to see his interpretation. 

“Nope, nope, definitely nothing,” Jane definitively said again.

The three went back and fourth for several minutes, each continuing to argue what their eyes were seeing. Each having no doubt and absolutely sure of their own take of the mysterious piece.

“How do you guys not see it?!?” shouted Jane.

“Well, I think it represents nature.”

The three’s gazes finally shifted from one another and the piece to the voice that’d come from behind them. It was that of a teenage girl who briefly looked at each of them before returning her sight to the piece in question.

“Huh? Nature?” Jane finally said.

“Yes,” replied the girl. “Just think. Clouds, snow, doves. Swans, polar bears, glaciers. Jasmine and other kinds of flowers. So many beautiful things in nature that are white. Clearly, that’s what the artist had in mind with this work — paying homage to the great Lord above.”

Two left eyebrows and a right all went up, as the original three tried to process this latest analysis. They stood in silence, scanning the work even more intensely for nearly a quarter of a minute.

“No, no, it’s definitely all the things,” Janessa broke the silence again this time.

“Definitely nothing!!” Shouted Jane.

“It’s chaos,” insisted the old man as he became almost as worked up as the sisters. “Can’t you see it?! It’s chaos!! Chaos, I tell you!!!”

“It’s a white butterfly,” the teenager said softly, smiling.

“You’re insane,” said Jane.

“What? You don’t like white butterflies?”

“I like things that make sense, and that doesn't make sense.”

“Attention, gallery visitors,” a male’s voice suddenly penetrated the foursome’s impassioned exchange through the loud speakers. “L'astuce will be closing in 15 minutes. Please make your way to the exit, and be sure to stop by our gift store on your way out. We greatly thank you for coming to visit our wonderful little house of art today and hope you will make your way back to see us again soon!”

The four looked at each other and then back at the controversial framed work.

“Well, I guess we’d better get going,” the older gentleman finally said in a calmer volume closer to where he’d began.

“Yeah,” said Jane, “I guess so.”

“You all have a great day,” he said, forcing a smile, and walked away.

“Thanks, you, too,” Janessa said at the same time as the younger girl, who then waved to him and the sisters as she also walked away.

The twins looked back at the work one last time and then soon slowly made their own ways to the exit.

A few moments later, another man walked by the same framed work in question as he was exiting the gallery, and it stopped him in his tracks.

He stood there for a few moments, his chin nestled in the cup of his index finger and thumb. 

“Attention, gallery visitors, L'astuce will be closing in five minutes,” the voice said again through the loud speakers. “Please make your way to the exit. Thank you, and have a wonderful day.” 

“Hmmm,” the man said to himself aloud as he stood, studying the piece. “Now, I wonder what this is supposed to be?”

“Oh, that?” a nearby janitor chuckled as he diligently worked his broom while enjoying his music through a single earphone. “No, that isn’t anything. There was a painting there before that someone recently bought, and now, we’re just waiting for a new piece to put in from that artist.”