For Art's Sake

 

I was walking along the Manzanares River collecting suitable rocks for my bathroom fresco, when I came upon an elderly man sleeping by the water’s edge. I almost walked into him, destined to crack a rib or two. I found myself still in a daze from the bathroom fiasco. The contractors I hired were crooks, taking their dulce, dulce time renovating my massive castillo in the nearby town Quinta del Gordo. It was 1819 and I worried that electricity would be invented before the tiling fools finished installing all my wall-mounted candle sconces. 

The old man held a canvas and several paintbrushes under his arm. Presumably, it was a sign he was an artist, or at least worked for one. I tried to make out the image, despite the poor angle. When I did, it was shocking. It depicted a man eating a child, with the untamed fervor of many-a-finger-lickin’ diner at CFC (Cordoba Fried Chicken). Taken aback, I asked him if he would consider repainting it – that I’d make it worth his while (gold had been kind to me). Plus, I had plenty of money that I was planning on not paying the bathroom contractors. There was a possibility, under the arm of a trained professional, to salvage the work. 

Couldn’t the man in the painting be eating a chicken wing instead? There was silence. The old man looked through me, creepily staring into the bottom my soul. How important was this image anyway? Did art lovers really want to see cannibalistic infanticide? I suggested a few alternates. Have the man in the painting hailing a carriage. He could even be singing. If that didn’t work, he could paint the river itself without people. The Manzanares was quite lovely back then.

I stood there for hours, pleading with the man to reconsider. I must’ve named every type of cuisine there was at the time, looking for any replacement. Why did he have to make something scary and weird? Some might say, why was it my problem to fix? I could just paint my man eating a chicken wing and be done with it. It’s more important to get others to bend to your will than to follow your own heart. Just as true today as it was in 1819.

Nothing mattered. I couldn’t break through. Years later, I got Paul Cezanne to reconsider painting fruit after the smell of raw meat began to envelop his studio. Most people don’t realize the great man had a supreme fixation on garden gnomes, believing they possessed mystical qualities and deserved a place on every canvas. It took some pushing and lots of wine, but he came around and left the creeps with the shovels and hoes. But this old man wasn’t Cezanne. He wouldn’t budge. I made the best case I could and had nothing to show for it - not even one altered brushstroke. That his art would hurt people, give them dangerous ideas and might even send them to a gallery’s fresco-less lavatory meant nothing. He didn’t say a word. He hardly drew a breath. Next time you’re in Madrid, you can see the painting in the Prado, horrifying museum goers for two centuries. Whatever happened to painting pretty pictures?

I later discovered that the old man by the river was completely deaf.