Those Who Live in Grass Houses

Vermeer

Vermeer

He sat back and looked at the near-completed portrait. This was as close as he’d come to representing her as his soul understood her. How he had tried over the years to grasp the innocence, yet the wisdom, of this creature of pure beauty. It was so hard, so subject to that single too hasty stroke of the brush that sent everything awry from the truth.

She meant so much to him, inspired such obsession and determination to capture at least an iota of her perfection, that he was prepared to work at this for the rest of his life. And now he was so near to it, close enough to dab with careful brush just a few more strokes and be done for eternity, free at last from his compulsion to produce his undying masterwork, his offering to her simplicity and grandeur.

Still he sat unmoving, conscious that he had done all that he could for the portrait, but aware, too, that something was not quite right. She was perfect, looking back at him over her shoulder, her eyes full of that innocence and trust that drew him on to heights beyond his imagining. Never could he do better than this. It was, in itself, a miracle, a happy and unexpected accident of his own talent that he had not expected.

So what was wrong?

His eyes went at last, reluctantly, to the background. It was his usual meticulous and peaceful interior scene, light streaming from a side window, deep shadow allowing highlights to spring forth from the canvas, bright details celebrating their life to the rich darkness in which they swam.

He had tried so hard to make the room perfect. And now it was betraying him somehow, as it never had before in any of his paintings. Somewhere, somehow, something in it was wrong.

And then he knew.

Without another thought, he mixed the colour on his palette and set to work. In great, sweeping strokes, faster than he had ever worked before, he hammered at the canvas, certain in his decision and unrepentant of the work he threw away in those moments. To an onlooker, it must have seemed an act of pure vandalism, those great swathes of darkness hurled at the picture to hide months of arduous and particular work.

But the man knew what he was doing. The problem identified, he was fixing it in the only way possible. The master of light was demonstrating his power over darkness too, throwing its warm folds over the scene and wrapping it around the offending objects.

The man who took years of painstaking work to produce so few works, perfect as cut diamonds, finished this adjustment in less than half an hour. Then he stopped, put down his brush and stood before the canvas, head down, for a few minutes as he recovered from the burst of frenzied activity. And he did not look at the painting before turning around and walking the few steps to the opposite side of the room.

When he turned and saw for the first time what he had done, he knew instantly that he had finished. The background of the painting, now blanketed in a deep and rich gloom, no longer competed for attention with the glorious object of the portrait. She gazed out from the darkness as the sole source of light, attracting the eye with a gentle insistence that brooked no denial, a face that looked out at the hundreds of years to come and knew nothing of its own unutterable beauty.

The painter had said what he wanted to say.


House Martell
Word count: 603
For "Game of Thrones" , Westeros, The Citadel, Task 11
Prompt: Take your favorite painting and write a poem or a story inspired from the painting.