Chapter 7
Emma
There is a grand legend attached to most paintings by Vincent van Gogh.
Many of them come from the hundreds of letters that Vincent wrote to his brother, Theo, that were slowly released to art critics and to the public after his death.
There have been dozens of compilations of those letters published over the years, entire textbooks dedicated to them.
Van Gogh is one of those artists whose life seems to exist in the zeitgeist of every generation.
I laugh at Stella for addressing him by his first name, but he is one of the few painters whose first name I think the majority of people could recall.
Most people have no idea that Picasso is Pablo or Matisse, Henri.
We know more about Van Gogh’s inspirations, his setbacks, his madness, and his brilliance than we do about practically any other artist. He’s a celebrity, a rock star, the John Lennon of artists. And it is because someone thought to preserve and publish all those letters.
So even if you’re not an art person, you have a vague idea about the Sunflowers series.
I have more than a vague idea. The Sunflowers have been lodged in my brain since the first time I visited the Philadelphia Museum of Art with my mom.
I was only three. I tried to grab at the painting because the petals on the twelve stems seemed real enough to touch.
Each flower had its own personality. I still remember the sharp rebuke from the museum guard.
Back then I assumed there was one painting of the flowers.
I only learned how many Van Gogh painted years later in school.
He did three of them while he was in Paris, maybe more.
When he moved to the countryside in Arles he had plans to paint a group of models one day out in the fields, but they never showed up.
It was unbearably hot, and not wanting to waste a burst of inspiration, he gathered a bunch of newly grown Provencal sunflowers and brought them inside, where he placed them in a locally made ceramic pot and started painting as many as he could to welcome his friend Paul Gauguin to paint with him in the South of France.
The exact number he made has never really been known.
Many Van Gogh paintings have been lost. There were some that perished in house fires, some in bombings during the wars, and others that simply languished in attics or basements, forgotten until they naturally deteriorated.
Two of the remaining sunflower paintings are among the most valuable pieces of art in the entire world.
And now I’m breathing the same air as one in a glorified closet in a penthouse in Paris.
“There are five flowers,” I whisper in amazement, because I know that none of the paintings that still exist have this many blooms.
“Yes,” Stella says quietly. “I thought you might notice that.”
“Is it…”
“Real?” Stella finishes my sentence.
“Yes. Is it?”
“What do you think?”
“It feels real.”
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know,” I say honestly, tracing my fingers through the air, inches from the canvas.
Stella’s eyes narrow, her gaze flickering between me and the painting with the careful calculation of someone who’s spent decades appraising value in art, in people, in opportunities.
“How long have you had this?” I ask. Though, if anyone would have a lost masterpiece casually hanging in their walk-in closet, it would be the widow of the richest art collector in the world. And yet something whispers to me that this painting didn’t come from Maxwell’s collection.
“It’s been in my family a long time,” she says, her voice softening in a way I didn’t think possible. “I used to joke with Maxwell that this painting is the reason he fell in love with me.” She laughs a genuine laugh, not a practiced social tinkle. “It’s why we met in the first place.”
I sink down onto the plush carpet and gaze up at the painting again. The vibrant yellows and golds pulse with an almost supernatural energy. I swear I can feel them warming my face, like sitting in a patch of late-afternoon sun after a too-long winter.
“What happened to that drink you were fixing me?” Stella asks.
“It’s still in the kitchen,” I reply, reluctantly breaking my gaze from the painting.
“Well, we should fetch it and get comfortable. This is not a short story. You’ll want to make yourself something too.
Perhaps we should order some food. Arthur can pop into the restaurant downstairs for us and bring something up.
They do an exquisite steak. I’ll call him.
You get the drinks and settle in the salon.
You can bring the painting. She comes easily off the wall. ”
“She?”
Stella’s laugh fills the small space. “I have always thought of it as an incredibly feminine painting, perhaps because Vincent had meant to paint female models the day that he made these and the form was still in his imagination. I have always referred to her as a she.”
I wait to ask my questions and lift the painting off the wall.
She’s much heavier than I expected. The subject matter makes it appear so light, but the worn wooden frame is formidable and the canvas is thick.
It feels wrong, illicit, to be moving the painting around; Stella seems to read my mind.
“We are all so trained to find the art untouchable. Let’s go enjoy her for a while.
It’s been some time since I’ve brought her out. ”
Stella leaves the room first. A light breeze whisks the fallen papers across the carpet.
I step on one and hear it tear slightly.
I can’t just leave everything like this.
I place the painting safely on the ground and begin the work of tidying up the small room enough that Stella won’t return to find a carpet covered in random documents.
As I’m shuffling them into an acceptable pile, a prominent seal and logo on top of one of the pages catches my eye.
“Emma.” Stella calls from the other room with no small sense of urgency.
“Coming,” I shout. As I quickly scan the page, my legs go rubbery. I have to sit back down.
Her fluttery footsteps are returning to the dressing room.
“I’ll be right there. Meet you in the sitting room,” I yell to deter her.
I carefully fold the paper into quarters and slip it into the back pocket of my jeans.
In the sitting room, I perch the painting on the top of an antique piano and once it’s leaning against the wall it feels exactly right.
The yellow flowers on their blue background, with the addition of the tangerine frame behind them, create the right contrast with the nearly black walls, and I’m proud of myself for positioning it just so as I go into the kitchen to add new ice cubes to Stella’s drink and to fix my own.
When I return, she’s already on the sofa, clad in bright blue silk pajamas that match the background of the painting, and I know that it’s on purpose. I hand her the drink. She takes a sip and makes a face. “Weak.”
“Do you want more?”
“Obviously.”
I return to the kitchen and add another splash to both of our glasses.
“Better?” I ask when I return.
“Much.” She smiles at me. “You seem to know enough about the history of Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers paintings to know what this is?”
I nod. I also know that one of these paintings, Fifteen Sunflowers, sold at auction with Christie’s in 1987 for more than $25 million.
“When I look at this painting, at any of the Sunflowers paintings, I see the entire circle of life,” Stella says.
“Vincent didn’t only pick the most beautiful and vibrant flowers to paint.
He combined all stages of a sunflower’s life in a single vase from bud to wilting petals.
We are all in there, from the newborn baby to the invisible older woman. ”
I had honestly never thought of them that way, but now I see the buds, the dead petals, and everything in between.
“But there’s something else in this one,” I note.
Because behind the vase is a window and in the reflection of the glass is Vincent painting the flowers.
This isn’t just a still life. It’s also a self-portrait.
“You have a keen eye, my dear. In this painting he combined the iconic flowers that he hoped would become his signature with his own gaze.”
“But, Stella, how did you end up with this?”
“Right. Right. Back on track. My grandmother was French. She was literally born on the street in Montmartre. As she put it, her own mother didn’t even know she was pregnant and when the time came she squatted in the gutter to relieve herself only to discover a baby between her legs.
I don’t know how true that is, but Grandmother never wavered when she told it.
She was raised by the sisters of the Sacré-Coeur in an orphanage for her first eight years, but then found herself on her own on the streets.
She eventually turned to prostitution to make a living before she made the acquaintance of Jo van Gogh. ”
Stella pauses, sips, and watches me as I take this improbable information in. I allow my jaw to drop, but I nod for her to keep going.
“It was shortly after Jo’s husband, Theo, had passed away that my grandmother Claire became friendly with Jo.
She helped her keep her house and took care of her young son, Vincent.
When Theo van Gogh died he left his wife with hundreds of worthless paintings and sketches by his brother.
Jo had to make something of them. She had to convince the art world that Vincent was something special to make money in order to survive.
She organized shows, courted critics. My grandmother helped her, and because of it, Jo gifted her several paintings. ”
“That seems extravagant.”