THREE CENTURIES, CUPID, HIDDEN, ERASED

WRITE A STORY OR A SCENE USING THESE WORDS

Nov 2nd, 2022

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Leslie Ava Shaw

Elissa looked closely at the painting before her on the easel set up in the conservation lab at the Detroit Institute of the Arts. How am I ever going to match this color? Elissa was a recent graduate and nervous about getting things right. Her mentor, Cecilia Sencaci, had been an expert in her field for forty years. She was a demanding professor and Elissa did her best to live up to her expectations.

Elissa had been fascinated by the paintings in the gigantic museum that was the Metropolitan, a two-hour drive from their little rural town of Glen Spey in upstate New York. As a girl of nine, she begged them to take her to the Met every weekend. They explained to her that it was a long drive and they had errands to run and shopping to do. They tried to convince her to enjoy the yearly Farm show, but it was no use. All Elissa wanted to do was visit the Met to examine closely the craqueleure of a painting by Duccio, created in the early 15th century. The Annunciation was her favorite subject to look at where the Virgin Mary was visited by an angel to reveal that Mary would become the mother of God. Elissa’s parents didn’t take her to church because they were agnostic, they told her, meaning they weren’t sure there was a god or wasn’t.

Another favorite of Elissa’s was by Venetian painter, Titian. The subject was Cupid and Venus. As a child, she had little interest in the subject, just the way Titian used a thin brush to paint the white tips of Cupid’s wings and the ochre tips of his blonde curls.

The painting at hand had been created nearly three centuries earlier in the early 18th century. By a follower of a French Rococco artist, Fragonard, the oil contained numerous figures on a large scale called Fete a Galante. The head conservator was sure there was an image that was hidden underneath based on technical studies of the work. It was Elissa’s job to be very careful not to erase the blue that was extremely sensitive to cleaning fluids.

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Danielle Schönfeld

I sit in the far corner of the courtyard and hold my glass of wine. Hidden away from the others. For a while I want to be alone and truly soak in the scene and this evening. It is around 10.30 in the evening and I wonder if he will make it. He said he is tired. But it is summer and this is a great opportunity for us to be out and enjoy life. The last two years almost all social events exceeding an intimidate group of five had been banned from our life due to Corona. Now the art school has opened the gates again and gives this gorgeous place to us.

I went with his friends. They picked me up with the bikes and just like teenagers we rode yelling and laughing in a wild formation violating all sorts of traffic rules. Not to mention that my dress was a constant threat to being caught in the wheels.

I deeply love this place – for three centuries the walls have created a save space for art and a mélange of drama. Me alone have memories of this place that I want to have erased from my memory. The unfulfilled expectation of the annual graduation class exhibition of the art school party. Many moons back, same courtyard with the monumental old trees with branches reaching to the ground, creating romantic little shelter for private tête-à-tête. The promise of those summer night’s heavy flower scent…

The music varies and the clothing style does too. What had been hot in 2010 is long forgotten. What the wear now in gender fluid days is beyond my comprehension but what stays is the same is the longing for this night might be memorable but in the good way with kisses and ending up with the one one is here for.

So I correct my posture, look up the sandstone walls into the huge illuminated windows, see people walk the floors. I hear laughter, glass, music and an undefined mumbling of the crowd. The figurines smile down at me. I see a little cupid winking. My phone rings. He is here.