Copyright
2018 by Gary L. Pullman
Alive in Shape andColor: 17 Paintings by Great Artists and the Stories They Inspired,
an anthology edited by Lawrence Block, is Block's “encore” to InSunlight and Shadow: Stories Inspired by the Paintings of EdwardHopper. This time around, the
writers themselves picked the paintings (or, in a couple cases, the
statues) upon which they based their contributions. Their choices
vary from Norman Rockwell's The Haircut
and Art Frahm's Remember All the Safety Rules
to Rene Magritte's The Empire of Light
and Vincent van Gogh's Cypresses.
There are even a couple of nudes, Jean Leon Gerome's La
Verite sortant du puits and
Lilias Torrance Newton's Nude in the Studio.
Lee
Child's “Pierre, Lucien, and Me” is the shortest of the shorts.
The eight-page contribution, set in 1919 and based on Pierre-Auguste
Renoir's Bouquet of Chrysanthemums,
is told by its first-person narrator, the “Me” of the story's
title. Having had a heart attack, he learns that a second, fatal one
is inevitable within days, weeks, or months. He has no regrets and no
need to put things right, except in the case of Porterfield, a
wealthy young heir to a steel fortune, whom he'd duped.
Through his roommate, Angelo, the narrator learns of Porterfield's love for Renoir's work. A waiter, Angelo had overheard Porterfield express to his dinner companions his desire to purchase a Renoir before the price of the famous artist's work rises due to Renoir's recent death, and Angelo had told the heir that the narrator, an art expert who works at the Metropolitan Museum, might locate some of Renoir's paintings for him. In fact, the narrator is an amateur artist who works at the museum “unloading wagons,” but he agrees to become Porterfield's agent.
In Paris, the narrator locates Lucien Mignon, a painter and friend of the late painter. His own unsigned works closely resemble those of Renoir, whose work is also available. One of the famous artist's unfinished canvases bears a separate painting in its corner: a vase of chrysanthemums. The narrator purchases the still life, and Mignon cuts it from the canvas, reluctantly agreeing to forge Renoir's name on it, since Renoir did, in fact, paint the chrysanthemums. The narrator also buys twenty of Mignon's own paintings, later forging Renoir's name on each of them as well, and ships Mignon's paintings to Porterfield, keeping the genuine Renoir for himself.
Now that he is dying, the narrator regrets having cheated the naive, trusting young man. To make things right, he takes the actual Renoir painting down from his wall, wraps it, and takes it to Porterfield's home, leaving it with the heir's “flunky,” telling him that he wants Porterfield to have the painting because Porterfield likes Renoir. Returning home, he sits, “waiting for the second episode,” the heart attack that will kill him. “My wall looks bare,” he observes, “but maybe better for it.”
Although Child's story is not a horror story, it's an entertaining, well-written piece. How might Renoir's painting inspire a horror story? The answer, clearly, is in any number of ways. Here, for example, is one possibility, a good title for which might be “Last Respects”:
Through his roommate, Angelo, the narrator learns of Porterfield's love for Renoir's work. A waiter, Angelo had overheard Porterfield express to his dinner companions his desire to purchase a Renoir before the price of the famous artist's work rises due to Renoir's recent death, and Angelo had told the heir that the narrator, an art expert who works at the Metropolitan Museum, might locate some of Renoir's paintings for him. In fact, the narrator is an amateur artist who works at the museum “unloading wagons,” but he agrees to become Porterfield's agent.
In Paris, the narrator locates Lucien Mignon, a painter and friend of the late painter. His own unsigned works closely resemble those of Renoir, whose work is also available. One of the famous artist's unfinished canvases bears a separate painting in its corner: a vase of chrysanthemums. The narrator purchases the still life, and Mignon cuts it from the canvas, reluctantly agreeing to forge Renoir's name on it, since Renoir did, in fact, paint the chrysanthemums. The narrator also buys twenty of Mignon's own paintings, later forging Renoir's name on each of them as well, and ships Mignon's paintings to Porterfield, keeping the genuine Renoir for himself.
Now that he is dying, the narrator regrets having cheated the naive, trusting young man. To make things right, he takes the actual Renoir painting down from his wall, wraps it, and takes it to Porterfield's home, leaving it with the heir's “flunky,” telling him that he wants Porterfield to have the painting because Porterfield likes Renoir. Returning home, he sits, “waiting for the second episode,” the heart attack that will kill him. “My wall looks bare,” he observes, “but maybe better for it.”
Although Child's story is not a horror story, it's an entertaining, well-written piece. How might Renoir's painting inspire a horror story? The answer, clearly, is in any number of ways. Here, for example, is one possibility, a good title for which might be “Last Respects”:
After the wake that follows a lavish funeral in which hundreds of people paid
their last respects, the decedent's widow, Chloe Sullivan, recalls
moments of happiness she shared with her late husband: his proposal,
their honeymoon in Naples, the elegant home they bought, the births
of her children and how her husband had doted on them, the birthdays
and holidays they enjoyed as a family.
She is interrupted by her maid, Juanita, who asks her what she should do with “all the flowers” in the parlor, where her husband's body is laid out. It's a shame to toss them out, she laments. “They are so beautiful, especially the chrysanthemums the family sent.” Chloe snaps, “I'd throw those things in the garbage this instant if Salvatore's son, Guido, had attended the wake, but, even now, he has to screw things up, missing his damned plane! It wasn't bad enough his father put a hit out on my Brody?” The maid tries to console her employer, but Chloe shoos her away. “As soon as Guido pays his last respects, though, that bouquet of chrysanthemums will be the first to go!” she promises herself, as, alone in the parlor, she gazes on her husband's remains.
She is interrupted by her maid, Juanita, who asks her what she should do with “all the flowers” in the parlor, where her husband's body is laid out. It's a shame to toss them out, she laments. “They are so beautiful, especially the chrysanthemums the family sent.” Chloe snaps, “I'd throw those things in the garbage this instant if Salvatore's son, Guido, had attended the wake, but, even now, he has to screw things up, missing his damned plane! It wasn't bad enough his father put a hit out on my Brody?” The maid tries to console her employer, but Chloe shoos her away. “As soon as Guido pays his last respects, though, that bouquet of chrysanthemums will be the first to go!” she promises herself, as, alone in the parlor, she gazes on her husband's remains.
Block
found that he was at a loss for his intended contribution to the
anthology, until a friend emailed him a reminder that “Looking for
David,” a story Block had written years ago, about Michelangelo's
statute of David, would make a perfect addition to the volume. The
painting in which Block had sought inspiration for an original story,
Raphael Soyer's The Office Girls,
serves as the anthology's frontispiece; at the close of his foreword
to Alive in Shape and Color,
Block invites readers to “come up with a story of your own” for
Soyer's painting. “But don't send it to me,” he adds. “I'm done
here.”
Joyce Carol Oates based her contribution, "Le Beaux Jours," on this painting, Les beaux jour, by Bathus
Thomas Pluck based his story, "Truth Comes Out of the Well to Shame Mankind," on Jean Leon Gerome's La Veritie sortant du puits
Remember All the Safety Rules by Art Frahm inspired Jill D. Brock's "Safety Rules"
The
volume contains seventeen muses, and there are, of course, hundreds,
even thousands, of others available in museums around the world—and
online—all waiting for a writer, of horror or other types of
fiction, to tell the stories that they, the paintings, suggest. They await,
in other words, the translation of images into words.