R65: Picture
Title: Artist Unknown
Characters: Art Museum Person, Sketchbook
POV: Exhibit Organizer
Notes: Once again, I like this concept but feel I really could have done better. Oh well.
There is something alluring about Artist Unknown. The art can be viewed then without the burden of unnecessary influence about the purpose, the artist’s life, the artist’s sister and favorite food and the average time it took the artist to shower- so many things dirtying the purity of the art. Art should be scared, not weighed down by mundane soil.
That was what drew me to examine Sketchbook: Artist Unknown. The curator gave me Date Estimate: 30-50 years ago and Location: Found in Private Collection. I had seen it come in with the newest artwork, but I had not had the chance to examine it.
My spectacles lay on the top of my computer- I reached for them and slid them on, feeling the familiar weight on the bridge of my nose. As if I were opening a candy, I turned the sketchbook open.
For my first venture into this world of Artist Unknown, I looked through it quickly. The entire sketchbook was filled with only two subjects: a plump, middle-aged woman and a young boy of perhaps two or three years. Skimming along the pages, I was reminded of a flipbook. The woman- she looked into a mirror, put on shoes, lazed about nude, fingered her ring, answered a phone, or gestured with those pure gestures common to any human anywhere. The boy- he was either asleep and clean or dirty and running about- I saw him captured in mid-leap, crouched with his knees spread, turning a somersault, throwing things, kicking, laughing, smiling…
I stopped. For the first time in my career, I felt as if I were an intruder into an intimate, private world. It felt like a sort of sacrilege.
But Artist Unknown drew me in again.
He (for I assumed that the Artist Unknown was male) had neatly rendered the lives of these two people in simple, sure strokes. It was a sketchbook, so all the pages were covered in sketches versus clean and finished drawings, but somehow the quick strokes captured the movement, the sheer realism of life better than any oil painting. There was something simple, something pure and timeless about the strokes crossing the page. There was something universal about the sheer honesty of the sketches. For a moment I saw the world as Artist Unknown, felt the warmth and love for these two people, for their life together.
With my magnifying glass, I looked onto the pages. I saw a bowl-shaped depression in the paper where Artist Unknown had leaned his elbow. There was an indented circle seeping through the pages where he had put down a drink. There were the smooth, pressed areas underneath the charcoal strokes. Here was an unfinished sketch: the young boy leaned forward, extending a hand.
Artist Unknown was honest. He had held a charcoal and had looked out with love, and he had loved them because of their flaws- the woman being petty and cruel, the boy being a child. And he had recorded them all down with his strong, masterful strokes- beings capable of selfishness and cowardice as well as love.
He had seen the world as it was, and he had thought it was beautiful.
I flipped through the sketches depicting his two subjects so candidly and openly and wondered how I could bear to do so. These were images depicting people in the hearts of their lives. It was somehow private.
To Mr. Adam Hoffman:
Recommendation concerning Sketchbook: Artist Unknown.
Sketchbook has serious artistic and humanitarian values. Do not put it on display.
.