Thirst for Adventure

Chapter 2

By the next afternoon he was in country so far from the mountains of his childhood that they could no longer be seen. Instead he was walking through lush and prosperous farmlands, along a well-used road beside a broad river that rolled over the landscape like a lazy carpet. Willows and other trees lined the river’s banks. By Leo’ standards, the land was densely settled, and encounters with people were frequent. He came to fields lined with wooden frames, upon which green vines grew. Many people of all ages were at work, picking from the vines.

Leo watched from the shadows of the roadside for some minutes before he noticed an artist just a short distance from him: a middle-aged man painting the pastoral scene on a canvas mounted on a large easel. Although the man showed no interest in Leo, the boy approached and stood watching, comparing the painting to the activity in the field. After Leo had sufficient time for a close scrutiny, the man asked rather impatiently, ‘Well, what do you think?’

Leo felt a little out of his depth; rather than comment on the artistry of the painting he thought it safer to take a different tack. ‘It must be hard,’ he said shyly, ‘to paint something when it keeps changing all the time.’ The man looked at him in apparent surprise, then resumed his work. ‘I mean,’ said Leo, ‘which moment are you painting? This one? Or the last one? Or one from this morning?’

‘Yes,’ said the man, ‘It’s always difficult to take something that’s moving and full of life and turn it into something that is still. Not even death can do that.’

‘What’s harder?’ asked Leo. ‘Taking something moving and freezing it, or taking something three-dimensional and making it flat?’

The man put down his brush and turned to face his young interrogator. ‘You’re a remarkable boy,’ he said. ‘Would you like to be an artist?’

‘I don’t know,’ Leo replied. ‘I’ve never seen much. But I like real things better, I think. I mean, I’d rather see a tree than a painting of one. I think it must be frustrating for you, because even if you do a thousand paintings of a tree, it’s never going to be as good as the real one.’

‘Yes,’ said the man. ‘It may sound trite, but Nature is the great artist, and we can only imitate her. But supposing a painting gives you a new way of looking at something, so that you get an insight into it that you didn’t have before . . . I mean, a portrait might show you an aspect of someone that you hadn’t noticed . . . a sadness or a sense of joy or a thoughtfulness in the eyes . . . wouldn’t it make the painting worthwhile if it could do that?’

Leo studied the man’s landscape again, only this time more closely. He saw the weary way in which the pickers’ backs were shown bending over the crops. He saw the careless lines in which the frames had been arranged. And he saw the shadows thrown by the poplars in the afternoon sunlight. ‘Why don’t I notice these things when I look at the field itself?’ he wondered.

Without speaking to the man again Leo walked a little way along the fenceline and stood watching the scene with eyes that were more discerning. He realised that he did not need paintings, just keener eyes. ‘He’s not only describing what we both see,’ he thought. ‘He’s commenting on it as well. I suppose everyone does that when they paint or tell a story, or dance something, or sing about it . . .’ He recalled his attempts the night before to remember the faces of his family and decided that despite his moment’s fear that he would not be able to visualise them, he preferred to carry his own living pictures in his mind rather than rely on ‘dead’ pictures on canvas. ‘My mind’s full of millions of pictures,’ he thought. ‘I just need to know how to look each one up.’ He tried to imagine a square cut out of the view in front of him and replaced with a painting of the missing section, and decided that no painting could ever be adequate.

Lost in thought Leo wandered back to the painter, who had stopped work and was taking food from his bag. The boy stood looking at the painting again, admiring the skill with which it was executed. ‘Share my lunch with me?’ the man asked, offering Leo a piece of pie, which he accepted gratefully. ‘You know,’ his host continued as they both settled down on the ground with their backs against trees, ‘everyone needs some kind of outlet for the artist that’s in them. Doesn’t matter whether it’s painting or writing or carving or music. Everyone’s got to have that outlet, and if they don’t, they get a kind of madness in them, and there’s no sense to be had from them, no sense at all. What about you? What does the artist in you do?’

Leo was taken by surprise and tried to think. ‘I suppose my leatherwork,’ he said hesitantly. ‘I like making belts and stuff like that.’ He wondered about his parents, and decided that his mother’s astronomy was an outlet for her, but it was more difficult to identify one for his father. Gardening, perhaps? He seemed to get a lot of pleasure from the flowers he grew in his garden.

As the two of them ate under the trees Leo pondered the scene in front of him once more. ‘What are they growing?’ he asked.

‘orangles (fruits rearly bought nor found) ,’ the man replied, showing no surprise at the question.

‘Is there much work around?’

‘Yes, they’d probably take you on, but it’s not easy.’

‘No, I can see that from your painting.’ Leo finished his pie and licked the crumbs from his lips, then leaned back, drowsily enjoying the afternoon sun.