Life Studies

The Stories, The Artists, The Characters

THEN

Mimi with a Watering Can

Auguste Renoir

In a moment the silk of his wife's dressing gown might slide down to reveal the shape and smoothness of the globe of her breast.

Winter of Abandon

Claude Monet

...one step closer to his bedroom, which frightened me with longing.

Cradle Song

Berthe Morisot

I know enough to hate her tonight for wanting more than all she already has.

Olympia's Look

Edouard Manet

He relished all of these women as though they were succulent fruit...What existed between artist and model that made it so likely that they would become lovers?

The Yellow Jacket

Vincent van Gogh

Armand felt his arm flex, his fist spring forward into Gustave's jaw.

Of These Stones

Paul Cézanne

"I promise." But even as he uttered those words, he knew the senselessness of reciting words without feeling.

A Flower for Ginette

Claude Monet

"This is mine to do," he said. "You do yours." He felt a ping in his chest. Even if he had to fight him, ridiculous at their age, he would not give over the brush.

In the Absence of Memory

Amadeo Modigliani

Even this minute, this most important minute of her life, she had to share him with strangers.

INTERLUDE

Adventures of Bernardo and Salvatore,

or The Cure

Michaelangelo, Raphael, Bernini

"I am dying," Bernardo finally told his friend. "You'll do no such thing. I'll be needing new boots soon, and then where am I to get them?"

NOW

The Things He Didn't Know

Standing close behind her in the crowded gallery, he reminded her with his hands how his fingers felt moving up the back of her thigh.

Uncommon Clay

Those that survive will show that they have been tempered, tested, threatened with destruction, yet they have withstood the heat. Why one survives and another perishes is a mystery.

Respond

As a commensurate gesture in his honor, she fluffed up her pubic hair as she took her pose, the Macedonian Muscle Torture.

Crayon, 1955

Pablo Picasso

It was an enchanted house. I wanted to memorize it...to walk around in it again and touch everything and open the books and the boxes. I felt badly that I had called Miss Haskin a flamingo and a cube.

Five Hundred Words,

With Sincerity and Honesty

Fra Filippo Lippi

Just the thought of the Holy Mother and her sister Elizabeth watching their two boys, Jesus and John the Baptist, doing tricks on skateboards made the other girls on my wing laugh, and that made me feel cool for a change.

Gifts

He looked at his hands scrubbing each other. If they let him touch her...They might let him touch her.

Their Lady Tristeza

Henri Matisse

It was unmistakable--just like an artist's paper cutout, the figure sitting on the floor, bending over her raised knee. Only he added one thing. He drew a Band-Aid over her right breast.

Tableaux Vivants

Georges Seurat

Seeing my only child transformed at eighteen into a World War II soldier in fatigues would probably make me cry, even though the Pageant is just a theatrical romp of role-playing for the sake of art. I'd prefer a Roman god.