Seiobo There Below (12 page)

Mr. Arlango could have said that, contrary to all expectations, the picture was not at all in as bad a condition as would have been expected at first sight, and he could have said that this was due to the picture’s already having been restored five or six decades previously; for if, within the internal parlance of Mr. Arlango, this earlier restoration could be termed philistine and irresponsible, it was nonetheless helpful, very helpful, that the original canvas had been backed up against and then stretched onto another canvas, and the reinforced picture had been placed again upon a frame; they, however, had made use of three unacceptable procedures, as it happened; for one, Signor Arlango muttered to himself, they did not take into account how the paint was cracking and peeling away from the canvas; two — he counted to himself on his fingers — they retouched, indeed repainted the right eyebrow of Christ our Lord, the hair of Christ our Lord, and the shoulder of Christ our Lord; and three, grabbing his thumb, index and middle fingers and squeezing them together in rage, they had simply smeared the surface of the painting with some cheap junk, some kind of lacquer-like substance, which in the course of time had oxidized and yellowed, and with that, the fate of the picture was sealed, because that for the most part ruined it, more precisely — and with the increasing inner force of his words he punched into the air — they
falsified
the original effect of the painting, chopping up and finally destroying the picture itself, because this had caused the entire artwork to change, which is unforgivable on the part of a restorer, whose business it is precisely to give back to the work the spirit of its original creation, but these ones, Mr. Arlango motioned with his hand resignedly, they could not have been restorers, a restorer would never do such a thing, methods such as these are used only by amateurs, by dilettante art-bunglers, and pronouncing these words — dilettante art-bunglers — Mr. Arlango calmed down; because when in the course of his work he came into contact with dilettantes, he pronounced his judgment, named them for what they were, and that was that, he was finished, no longer bothering with the matter, only with how to render them harmless, if it was still possible; at such times as now, he fell into deep concentration, looking at the picture for hours on end, thinking through what was to be done, what work must be completed, in what order it should proceed, what materials to use, what examinations to be performed — then he set to work, and at such times it really was not desirable to disturb him, for that matter it was not desirable to disturb him in general, as Dr. Agnese Chiari had already experienced in her own case; so she couldn’t have known what was going on in the workshop, nothing about the examinations, about what materials were being used, what working methods, and in what order they were being performed — so when the day arrived, that is to say when the examinations had begun and the picture was under the illumination of a special X-ray machine, the result was so surprising that even Signor Arlango hardly dared risk not informing the client, because he knew what was at stake, and it was hardly incidental — to establish, in other words, who was the artist — although looking at the picture closely, it had already been clear to him, from the nature of the draftsmanship as well as the varying quality of the details, that the work was the result of the effort of not one, but two artists; but he himself was quite surprised as — in the course of X-raying the picture, perceiving the difference in the pigments as well as the layers of imprimatura and gesso lying on top of each other, trying to determine their quality, condition, and kind — he glimpsed the name, the signature painted in the usual manner of the cinquecento onto the wooden board itself, it was placed deliberately — or in any event, before the painting of the work had begun — into the pictorial space: then he no longer hesitated, he notified the Confraternita to send someone, for he had something important to show them on the picture, so that after Dr. Agnese Chiari from the San Rocco had arrived once again, Mr. Arlango merely placed the picture behind the X-ray device, chased his guest out of the workshop, pressed the remote control in his hand, withdrew the slide, and developed it, and only then did he call the guest waiting in the corridor back in, sat her down in a chair, but said nothing to her, altogether he said not one word, only snatched up the X-ray image now hanging from a string tautened across the workshop window and handed it to her, withdrawing wordlessly to his work table, and he made as if he were scraping away at something again; but all the while he was observing the client, who looked at the picture for a while in silence, then got up from her chair, coming closer to see better in the light, but there was no doubt: in the upper left-hand corner of the X-ray image was written legibly the name VICTOR and on the other side BELLINAS, and Dr. Chiari just looked, and she didn’t want to believe what she was seeing, because it just couldn’t be, and she just looked, looked at the name, her gaze now fixed on Victor, now on Bellinas, it wasn’t possible that this almost nameless nobody could have . . . it was unimaginable, nobody was going to believe her, but still the board of San Rocco, all waited with bated breath for her ceremonious announcement: my dear colleagues, it has been determined, to the exclusion of all doubt, that the creator of this work is Tiziano, or my dear colleagues, now there is no doubt whatsoever that the picture was painted by Giorgione, or possibly, I have the pleasure to inform you that, due to the result of our investigations, the creator of this exceptional work shall no longer be the subject of uncertainty, for it has been demonstrated that the author is Giovanni Bellini and no one else — except that it was someone else, Agnese Chiari now thought to herself, and consternated, thought it best to sit back down in the chair, because the name was finally so clearly legible, Victor Bellinas, who was none other than Bellini’s — the great Bellini, Giovanni’s — most indefatigable assistant, about whom — Dr. Chiari tried to call forth from her memory — we know almost nothing, so insignificant was he; of course, there are perhaps one or two pictures that can be attributed to him, “Crocifisso adorato da un devoto” in the Carrara Museum in Bergamo, and maybe a few others; a fresher memory of a painting, perhaps of two young men, loomed forth from Dr. Chiari’s memory, but in reality he was not known as a painter, only a painter’s assistant, to whom Bellini left part of his estate, that is after the loss of his wife and the decease of his son, and he did not marry again, he had no heirs, for his bad relationship with his brother Gentile, as well as his even worse relationship with his father Jacopo, was common knowledge at the time, so for him it would have seemed most fitting to adopt this faithful, industrious, trustworthy assistant, this Vittore di Matteo, as he was originally called, to adopt him simply as his grandson and bequeath to him the most valuable of what would remain after he was gone, that is to say the workshop, counted as the most illustrious in Venice in 1516, when Bellini died; this was bequeathed as an inheritance to the disciple of Venice’s most famous painter as the chief asset along with, Agnese Chiari thought to herself — it now seemed, one or two unfinished pictures; she now rose from her seat and, as the master restorer continued to scrape away exhibiting the greatest possible indifference to the matter, she went over to the picture again, looked at it more thoroughly, and perhaps not so accidentally reached the sudden conclusion as the workshop’s master had reached at the very beginning, for she now saw at once that the head, well, it was somehow different from the whole, ravishing in and of itself, while everything else seemed to have been painted in a completely divergent, greatly inferior fashion: it was a flash, but Agnese Chiari understood instantly that the head was Bellini’s, and the rest had been completed after the death of his great mentor by Vittore di Matteo, called Belliniano in his honor, according to his own talent, which was not exactly scandalous but just in no way comparable to the genius of the creator of the head; there stood the envoy of San Rocco and she did not know what to do; should she try to talk with this dreadful Mr. Arlango and ask his opinion — what for? — she cast aside the idea, it would be enough to persuade the council of the Confraternita of San Rocco to swallow this surprising result, and accept that life is surely a little more complicated than those present here, the current generation, would like to admit; that is to say the picture is completely immaculate, Agnese Chiari explained to the council, enthusiastically raising again and again the enlargement taken from the X-ray image, it is immaculate in every possible meaning of the word, she said, in once sense because master Arlango, after necessary chemical testing, mixed a certain solvent with which the “protective lacquer” originating from the unknown yet dilettantish hand was removed, and now it shines forth in its own immaculate, its own original character; but it is immaculate in the sense too that we now know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, who painted it, at which point the members of the council exchanged significant glances and looked at the art historian with great expectation, and if they were not made unequivocally happy by what they heard, it was because, now was it Bellini — or not Bellini? — they asked each other; do you understand? the question went back and forth, I for one don’t, came the answer from here and there, and as Dr. Chiari could see just how difficult it was for the council members to take in the truth, she repeated again and again that the head, and her voice resounded triumphantly in the room — was Bellini’s; the picture, however, she continued, originates from various hands; it can be hypothesized that this certain Belliniano found this marvelous head among the canvases that had been begun by his master in the workshop bequeathed to him, and cleverly, so that he could be there and yet not be there — he could hardly bear to write the name of his own person, having finally emerged from his master’s shadow, and yet he could not bear not to write it — he accordingly wrote his own name, dividing it between the left and the right sides of the head, and then painted over it, in other words concealing the entire thing; for surely he knew well that he could sell it as a Bellini painting for a huge sum anywhere and anytime, whereas an unfinished Bellini, actually a hardly started Bellini — not to mention, if he were to betray that apart from the head he had painted the entire picture — wouldn’t get him anything, only a few coins, so he painted what was missing as best he could; the three Greek letters on either side of the head, the naked torso, the shoulder, the two hands as they intertwine in the front of the picture, and he created for all of this a dark background, so that the face, whose enthralling power he would never have been able to conjure up himself, would burst forth as it were from the darkness, with its boundless docility, something like that occurred, it is certain — Dr. Chiari reported to the members of the council — and so the endless dilly-dallying could finally come to an end, at which the council members, slightly confused, began to nod their heads, and consented to everything that the art historian recommended, namely that the painting should not be put back into its old corner in the Albergo, but that it should be put on a stand in a prominent spot in the great hall, and an article should be written about it, because they could be completely certain — Agnese Chiari reassured her colleagues — that the art historians, if they had not done so before, would now take notice of this picture, so let it be displayed with all the respect due to a great creator, it should be lit with a spotlight and then they would see that the name of S. Rocco would become even more illustrious, for it was not any old finding that they had been able to discover with this Vittore, mark my words, repeated Dr. Chiari, everyone will be talking about this; in which, however, the scholar was greatly mistaken, because in total a notice of a few lines was published in a professional journal for restorers, penned by an unknown art historian, Giovanna Nepi Sciré, and the whole thing remained confined to the pages of Restituzioni 2000, which, because of the far too specialized nature of the journal’s orientation, could not reach the personages most affected, so that they knew nothing of this discovery, not Tempestini, not Goffer, not Belting; and the wider public, finally, knew nothing at all, so that now, standing in the square before the San Rocco in the sunlight that filtered through the iron gate, as he made ready to enter the building at last and seek out the work for the second time in its usual spot; inside, on the ground floor, the vendor behind the ticket desk awaited the tourists, continually arranging the exact same postcard with the exact same signature taken from the famous painting, exactly as eleven years ago, when he had come here for the first time, had entered and come into sudden contact with the Dead Christ, up there on the second floor, the little room opening up on the left from the wide landing, in the corner of the Albergo, not even lit by a single light.

The group with which he had arrived did not, as a matter of fact, wish to return to the heart of the city; due to the general fatigue, the direction proposed seemed like the journey back, but nobody wanted to turn back, no one was thinking that this Venetian excursion had to come to an end, and they would return to the station; they wanted to rest, that was the truth, but not to have it come to an end, to relax, and eat and drink, because they were truly exhausted from having walked all day; when he proposed that, before sitting down in a restaurant somewhere, they should absolutely, at the very least, see the San Rocco while it was still open, at first a uniform and drawn-out “no” was the response, the children in particular began to whimper and then to scream at full volume at even the mere mention of a museum visit, but then he said that it was possible to sit down in the San Rocco, and that according to the guidebook there was, on the Campo San Rocco, or nearby, a fountain, moreover on the way, there was also a very special ice-cream parlor, well with this he was victorious, the company began to incline toward the idea, good, they said, San Rocco, fine, but this is the last stop before the restaurant and if there was neither a fountain nor ice-cream parlor, they would wring his neck, mark their words — they were merry and intoxicated with what is termed the dazzling beauty of Venice, and there was an ice-cream vendor on the Campo S. Margarita, where they suddenly emerged, slightly diverging from the direct route, but then, finding a shadowy spot, when they withdrew toward the wall of one building to lick their ice cream, they noticed that there were at least two attractive-seeming restaurants open for business on the square; first they tried to talk him out of the whole idea of San Rocco, saying that Tintoretto — it was because of him that they had come — was just an overweening “something,” as one lady of the group put it, so they should just drop the whole thing; then, however, when they saw that he really was dead set on it, and wanted to go there no matter what, they advised him that this Campo S. Margarita was alluring enough for everyone to sit down in one of the two restaurants, and if he was so set upon it, well he could go, on the map San Rocco wasn’t so far from here, and really it wasn’t, although once again he got lost at the Rio Foscari, but then someone helped him, pointing him in the right direction, so that barely ten minutes later he was already standing in front of San Rocco; as it was too hot on the square he went straight into the building, thinking he would have a quick look, that he wouldn’t miss Tintoretto after all, then hurry back, for his feet were really burning by now, and he too was certainly quite hungry and thirsty, so just Tintoretto, he decided, he would regret it later on if, citing his fatigue, he had to admit having seen nothing of it, so he went inside, buying an entrance ticket that was more expensive than usual but forgetting to take the museum’s guide along with the ticket, so that at first he thought this is the whole thing, the ground floor, that it was the entire Scuola Grande di San Rocco, and he began to look for the Tintorettos and even found eight of them, but not a single one had any effect on him at all, that is to say that these Tintorettos were not the real thing, here in this one large room, that was cold, not very beautiful, and a little forbidding, with a grumbling ticket-puncher at the entrance and behind her, on a few tables, the offerings of cheap reproductions by the illustrious names of the place, and an equally grumpy employee, so can this really be right, he reflected, it’s inconceivable that there are no real Tintorettos here, and he was about to start back to the ticket desk to inquire where the real Tintorettos were, when to his left he spied a broad staircase, and as there was no sign on it stating that tourists were not allowed, he began to walk up it, a little timorously; his first steps were hesitant, but then, when no one called after him, he grew ever more decisive, and so wound his way up to the landing, like someone who knew from the start exactly where he was going, and there at the landing he realized he was a fool, a yokel from eastern Europe, an irredeemably insensate figure, for at the landing the two fresco panels by Pietro Negri and Antonio Zanchi revealed that he was in the right place now, that this was where he should have come right away, and then, on this upper floor — of course it was the same with everyone who comes here for the first time, it was also his first time up here — it then occurred to him that he had forgotten to catch his breath, because it was so unexpected, and for him this heavy magnificence awaiting the visitor fell so unexpectedly upon him: the ceiling painted in gold, the richly molded stucco, and in the midst of all this the real Tintoretto, his overpowering paintings striking him with such force, and the geometrical patterns in the marble floor beneath his feet left him so taken aback by their physical beauty that he didn’t know how not to step on them; so that his movements were only directed by that, and there remained still a kind of uncertainty as if he were continually dizzy, and he was dizzy, at first he stepped onto the marble floor with a bad feeling, as if he were not worthy to take these steps, and at first he didn’t even dare to look at the ceiling for a long time, for he felt he was really losing his balance, good lord, he sighed, as he slowly began to slide here and there, he had no idea where to begin or with what, because what should he do with these real but gigantic Tintorettos, what should he do with this blinding light affixed to the windows, for in this light, things were being laid open to him that he simply did not deserve, he thought, troubled, then he started off again, went over to the facing wall, and quickly sat down upon a chair, an uncomfortable modern one that could be folded shut and re-opened, an entire row of which was assembled all along both of the lengthwise walls, and just then he could have collected himself a bit, when from the back of the hall the guard headed very decisively toward him, and pointed at something behind the chairs: where underneath the windows, every meter or so, there was some kind of paper on the wall, stuck onto the marvelous carved decorations, the guard pointed at these and muttered something in Italian, of which he understood not one word, until finally one of the papers was pressed into his hand, where it was also written in English, DO NOT SIT DOWN!; nodding, he sprang up and not asking where else, or why the chairs had even been put there in the first place, he slowly began to walk by the windows, but the sunlight kept blinding him, so that he could hardly even see the huge Tintorettos; finally he made his way around and once again began the slow sliding, here gaping at the ceiling, here at the Tintorettos, and so it went, and he could not even conceive that, in this palatial hall, such bounty as had been created, marvelous but still too weighty for him, could even be possible, because it was too much, he was too weighted down by this rich beauty and excess, so that it was with relief that he discovered an open door at the end of the hall, which opened onto a little side-room; he quickly scurried in, for he believed that there would be less splendor here, and chiefly that he wouldn’t be so much under the gaze of the guard, who — as he was the only visitor capable of trying something, as he had dared to sit down — perpetually attempted to stand in his path, practically chasing him, not leaving him in peace for a moment; of course the guard acted as if he weren’t watching him, but he kept returning to the door of the little side-room to see what he was up to, but what could he have done, he asked himself, but slowly inch along the walls before the colossal paintings, and just as he was about to leave the room, with the intention of quitting the museum as soon as possible — as the museum-guard was too much for him, as was indeed the entire palace — and he now really did need to rest, he needed a rest from all this unparalleled yet complex pomp and monumentality and he was about to go back into the large hall from the smaller side-room, when he noticed that there stood a picture-stand in the corner — buried away as if it weren’t any object of great consideration — and the picture-stand held a little painting; his gaze happened upon it and he stepped back with a serious demeanor, to reassure the guard who was staring at him again, he stood in front of it like a proper museum-goer, or at least how he imagined a proper museum-goer should stand, he stood in front of the little painting, which depicted a half-naked Christ, whose head was so gently inclined to one side, and on his face was such an endless and otherworldly peace, he could not determine whether the figure was lying or standing, in any event, somewhere in front of the stomach the two hands intertwined, and the slightly awkwardly-painted blood could be clearly seen as it dripped from the wounded hands, but on the face there was not the slightest trace of suffering, it was a very unusual likeness; Christ’s hair, shining gold, fell in curling locks onto his slender shoulders, and again and again that terrible docility and resignation because — and he had discovered this first — in contrast to all the tranquility and peace, a profound desolation inexpressible in words was upon that face, and the whole image shone forth from a darkness, like gold against the deepest night, he looked, he looked at this strange Christ, and he could not bear to look away, he was no longer bothered by the guard, who just now was not only looking in but actually standing in the doorway with the most obvious expression of suspicion, to watch him to see if he was about to attempt another scandalous move as he had just done in the other room with the chairs, but although this happened, he didn’t see him anymore, he didn’t even realize that the guard was watching him, just then he saw nothing, for he was looking at Christ’s eyes, to figure out just what made this Christ so distinctive and demanded his full attention, he looked into those eyes which were so mesmerizing, because that is what happened: the picture, this imago pietatis-like figure of Christ had mesmerized him, he searched for some point of support but there was no helpful explanation, not under the picture nor on the stand which had been set up, nor on the wall before which he stood, nothing regarding the painter or the subject, they had simply put up this Christ-torso by the wall in the corner, as if the exhibition planners of San Rocco wanted to say — well, we have this picture as well, it’s not too interesting but as long as it’s around we’ll just put it over here, so have a look at it if you’re interested, and he was interested, he really couldn’t look away from it, and then he suddenly realized why: both of Christ’s eyes were shut, ah yes, he sighed, like someone who had found the clue, but he had not found it at all, and that was even more unsettling, because he had to look some more, now however he looked at just the two closed eyelids, and he had to endure the knowledge that he wasn’t finding out the clue to the strangeness, he looked again at the whole — the fragile shoulders, the head inclined to one side, the mouth, the fine wisps of beard, the scrawny arms, and the two hands placed so oddly together — when suddenly he became aware that the eyelid of Christ seemed, as it were, to have moved a bit, as if these two eyelids had fluttered; he had not lost his sanity, so he said to himself no that’s impossible, he looked away then looked again, and the two eyes flickered yet again, this is sheer impossibility, he thought, frightened, and he was on the point of abruptly leaving the room, for it was clear that his fatigue was playing games with him, or that he had simply stared at the picture for too long and was hallucinating, so he went out of the little room and passing the guard, set off decisively for the staircase, but there, before he actually placed his foot onto the stairs, he thought again and turned, just as decisively as he had gone out, he came back in, even looking at the guard, and this helped him too, for the expression on the guard’s face was easy to judge as he turned abruptly back, and who was looking at him even more suspiciously than before, if that was possible; it was clear that as far as the guard was concerned he was an insolent nutcase, whose every move had to be watched carefully; and actually there was something to that, he was not entirely certain that he hadn’t gone mad, because what was up with this whole Christ in there, he asked himself, he did not go into the little room but, defying the guard, plunked himself down in the chair nearest to the little room; the guard, however, did not wish, or rather did not see the point in making him get up; here, however, he did perceive from the corner of his eye the notice printed on the pieces of paper telling people not to sit down; let’s consider this one more time, he thought with a quaking stomach, is this possible? — it is not possible, inside there is a picture, a body of Christ, with the head bent to one side, a gentle
abandoned
Christ; someone painted him, someone turned him into an ideal, and someone is looking at him, in this case myself, he said, and he wasn’t quite sure if he were speaking aloud or not, in any event the guard was coming quite close to him, so that when he decided that he would go in to confirm everything, he practically brushed up against his clothes, the two of them didn’t fit into the doorway, and he stood again before the torso of Christ, he constrained himself not to look at it for a bit, but then of course he looked at it, because this is why he had come in, and the two eyelids of Christ flickered again, but now he could not look away at all, but rather his gaze was fixed, and he looked gaping at these closed eyes, he knew without a doubt that the eyes of this Christ were trembling, and that they would tremble again, because this Christ WANTED TO OPEN HIS EYES . . . but then, as he realized this, he was already in the great hall on his way toward the staircase, already running down the stairs, turning onto the landing and he was already on the lower floor, out from beside the postcard vendor and the ticket-seller, out into the open air, into the throngs of people who, suspecting nothing, were undulating here and there in the friendly sunshine of the Campo San Rocco.