The Painter
So the great painter dies. Within minutes of his death the colors disappear from his paintings, the canvases crack and come apart, the frames fall to the floor. Millions of dollars worth of paintings, perhaps a billion dollars worth, are gone. Museum curators summon the police. Private collectors of his work—
No, the painter dies. The great one. Nobody would dispute that. Nothing happens to his paintings after his death. What does change is their value. One painting up for sale that day with an asking price of close to a million dollars, suddenly has an asking price of two million. A private art collector, interviewed on TV that night, says “When I bought this red one ten years ago for a hundred thousand, friends in the know said I paid twice what it was worth. Just a month ago an art dealer offered me five times that amount. Now with his death — not that I don’t grieve for him like the rest of us and think, if he was alive and healthy, what he could still do — I could probably get—”
No, the painter dies. The great one. Almost every artist and art expert agrees with that. The paintings he had in his studio will be exhibited this year in a major European museum and then travel to five of the top modern museums in the world before being put on the market. The heirs, to save on paying an estimated hundred million dollars in taxes, have made arrangements with the government where half the paintings—
No, the painter dies. We all know who. The great one. The greatest or second greatest painter in the last fifty years. Certainly one of the five great painters of the century. At least one of the ten great ones in the last hundred years. Definitely one of the ten great ones, of this century, and one of the most influential painters of all time. What modern art movement in the last sixty years hasn’t been influenced by him? Maybe some haven’t. There have been so many. But five, maybe ten of the major art movements in the last sixty to seventy years have been directly or indirectly influenced by his work. He died in his sleep last night at the age of ninety-one. Ninety-one years old and still painting. The painting he was working on for the last two months was to be one of his largest. Art dealers say the asking price for it, though it’s little more than half finished, will be around three million dollars, which will be one of the highest sums paid for a modem painting if it’s sold at that price.
No, he’s dead. The painter of the century. Or one of them. The day he died — he knew he had little time left, his wife said — he asked her to destroy the painting he was working on. He also asked her to write down his last words. They were “I didn’t paint any of the paintings that bear my signature, nor any painting that is said to be mine but doesn’t have my signature.” All his paintings bear his signature. He then gestured that he wanted to sign his name to the words she wrote down. His son held his writing hand as he wrote his name. Then he said he’d like a glass of his best champagne and some cherries. His wife went for them. By the time she got back he was dead.
No, he died. In his sleep. A peaceful death. Painting he was painting on before he got sleepy and had to be put into bed was of a man sleeping in bed. A dead man, it looked like. Didn’t look like an ordinary sleeping man. That’s what just about everyone said when the painting was later viewed at an auction house before it was sold for more than three million dollars.
No, he’s dead. His paintings aren’t. They live on on whatever walls they’re on. The colors haven’t faded. Nor the themes. They’re still alive.
No, they’ve all faded, colors and themes. The painter for the last week was fading, now he’s dead. Died in his sleep. He was drinking champagne at the time. No, can’t be.
Dead. The painter. Had a glass of champagne in his hand. He was awake when the glass dropped out of his hand. Or was awake just a moment before the glass dropped out of his hand. His wife, who had her back to him at the time, turned when she heard the glass smash on the floor. Her husband was slumped across the bed, hand dangling just above the floor. She called for her son. “Jose!” He ran into the room. He’d been in bed with the housekeeper in her room a floor above. Two floors above.
No glass broke. He did die while he was in bed. He was put there for a nap, but could have been awake when the accident happened. A painting hanging above the bed, one he did four years ago of his wife and him copulating and which he said he’d never sell for five million dollars, ten million, “all the money from all the countries in the world,” fell off its hooks on the wall and hit him on the head. “It probably killed him instantly,” the doctor said. The frame alone weighed 200 pounds. The painting doesn’t weigh more than a pound or two. “He painted that one thickly,” his wife said, “night after night after night for months, and it’s one of his largest, so maybe it’s three pounds, even four.”
No no no. He was killed in an auto accident. He asked his wife the day he died to take him back to the land of his youth. She said he was too frail to go anywhere. He then asked his son to take him there. His son agreed with his mother. “Then I’ll get there myself,” he said. He tried to get out of bed. They stopped him. He said “I will die of a heart attack tonight if I don’t make a quick journey back to the land of my youth.” They called the doctor. The doctor said he might be able to survive the trip. So they dressed him and got an ambulance to come. They put him in back of the ambulance on a cot. The ambulance hit a truck three miles from the house and turned over and the painter died. So did the ambulance driver and the attendant in back. His wife broke both arms in the accident. His son was in a car behind them.
No, the painter died in his sleep. In his sleep he was journeying back to the land of his youth. He got out of bed, in his sleep, did half an hour of the same vigorous exercises he used to do thirty years ago, showered and dressed himself, went downstairs, kissed his wife on the lips, patted her backside, kissed his son’s forehead, drank a cup of the very strong black coffee he always used to drink in the morning but hadn’t been allowed to for ten years, had a large breakfast, more coffee, said “Goodbye, I’ll see you both in a few days,” went outside, got into his sports car and drove down the hill and past the gatehouse. In his dream a truck hit his car just as he was crossing the border. Just after he crossed the border. Several hours after he’d crossed the border and was driving into the small village of his youth. While he was approaching the farmhouse his family had lived in for more than—