Chapter 38 Present Day #2
“Be careful, Oscar. l’amour l’emporte, love wins…always!”
“Well, I hope you’re right.” Oscar took the last sip of his latte.
“Do you know any more about Jean-Pierre Hoschedé?” he asked, changing the subject.
“I can’t get something out of my mind. When I met my long-lost relative, the winery owner, he said all the Hoschedés have red hair, like he does, or dark like mine.
Do you think this Jean-Pierre is the link? ”
“Well, there is one thing that the French enjoy more than making love and that is researching their ancestry. We all think we must be a descendent of Napoleon himself,” she said and picked up her phone. “I have even done it myself…joined , that is,” she said, eyeing Oscar over her phone.
Oscar watched her type. She truly made him laugh, but yikes, what a handful.
“Well, that was easy. Someone has done this for you. Oui…if Jean Maurice is your great-great-grandfather, then Bébé Jean, Jean-Pierre is your great-great-great-grandfather.”
“Seriously?”
“Oscar, you don’t look so happy about that?”
“Then the poor schmuck, Ernest, would have started this whole mess. I’m not sure his misfortune makes me feel any better about my chances of love and success.”
Elle looked surprised, then she furrowed her brow. “You silly boy…were you not listening to me? Ernest is not Jean-Pierre’s father.”
She looked at him, shaking her head, waiting for the revelation to hit.
“Hello? You may have some Hoschedé blood mixed in, but if Bébé Jean is your ancestor that would make you a direct descendant of the infamous Claude Monet.”
* * *
Elle dragged Oscar by the hand across the river, not to the Louvre but the Musée d’Orsay.
The museum hosted two more days of a six-month exhibit titled “Inventing Impressionism/Paris 1874.” They had brought together one hundred thirty works that epitomized the spirit of the Spring of 1874 when the impressionists rebelled against the pious Salon and held their own show, almost bankrupting them all.
Oscar stood mesmerized in front of the one painting that may have started this revolutionary painting style, Monet’s impression of sunrise, “Soleil Levant.” The painting hung against a black background, and a gold frame surrounded the magnificent sonata of color.
Shades of oranges and purples streaked across the sky, backlighting the hazy horizon of ships and industry.
A red sun penetrated the clouds that perfectly reflected off the multi-pastel waters where two lovers in a rowboat sailed toward the sun’s awakening.
Transfixed, Oscar’s body finally forced him to take in a deep breath. Could this be my ancestral roots? This brilliance of color and light, it was stunning, yet somehow sorrowful, full of emotion that resonated deep within his own soul.
Oscar stood silent, deep in contemplation, his left arm wrapped around his chest, his right elbow in his left hand, and his right hand under his chin.
In school, Oscar’s art history class had spent only one week on the artists represented by this movement—Monet, Renoir, Degas, Cézanne, Manet, and many more.
While the boys had focused on the sultry nudes of Manet, the professor redirected them to the genius use of hues and radiance that portrayed modern life as it was seen: fleeting and ethereal.
He told them that these artists brought a new understanding of how the eye reacts to these combined strokes of different colors to create an entirely new palette within the mind.
And because of the work the eye must do, these paintings feel more alive as you gaze on them—bringing movement and life, allowing the admirer to feel the scene rather than just look at it.
As he stood in front of his potential great-great-great-great-grandfather’s painting, who many believe started this movement, Oscar couldn’t help but feel enormous waves of emotions wash over him.
It was as if every strand of DNA in every cell in his body responded and rejoiced.
Is this why I love creating art? Why shapes and color and nature fascinated him so.
Imagine the paintings that would have come if Monet could have experienced the beauty of Glacier Park!
Elle allowed Oscar to immerse himself in the exhibit and the deep emotions they evoked, but now he felt her presence at his side. He glanced over and smiled. There was so much that didn’t make sense, but now so much that did.
“Thank you for bringing me here.”
“I thought you should see this before the museum closes for the day. I took a picture of a display that you haven’t seen yet. ‘Les chiens ne font pas des chats.’” She smiled her mischievous smile.
Oscar drummed his fingers on his cheek with impatience.
“Dogs don’t make cats,” she said
Oscar raised one eyebrow and frowned.
“It is like your American saying, ‘the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.’” She touched her phone, and a black-and-white image appeared of a young man, about Oscar’s age, dressed in a dark woolen jacket and gray pants, with a silk scarf tie, looking at the camera with a contemplative stare.
She handed Oscar her phone, and he zoomed in and out on the young man’s face.
“Do you know who that is?” Elle asked.
“It looks like it could be me…a hundred years ago.”
“One hundred and sixty, to be exact.” She thumped her finger against the screen. “This was taken in 1865 of…Claude…Oscar…Monet,” she said deliberately. “I think tomorrow we will go to his home in Giverny. Oui?”