The Artist’s Daughter With A Parakeet

By: Shima And Tempis

The gallery was old and forgotten; full of paintings both little known and little cared about. As Julia walked its halls she found herself feeling both alone and surrounded. Every picture she passed was so empty, so lacking in emotion.

As she walked the paintings blurred together until she could not determine one from another. How was she to draw inspiration from such lifeless artwork? She had known coming to the gallery would be a bad idea, but her editor had pressured her to seek a new direction in her writing. Supposedly, this lifeless sea of faces could help her.

As she passed a long hall of women's portraits from a haphazard collection of different time periods, a painting's title caught her eye. "The Artist's Daughter With A Parakeet." This gave her hope before even looking at the painting. Perhaps with a subject that the artist actually cared about, there would be some life in the painting.

She slowly drew her eyes across the canvas, over splatterings of color. The light peach of the girl's dress, the pale white and cream of the girl's hands, the startling greens and oranges of the parakeet's feathers and beak. The background was simple, many browns and greens and purples to suggest a studio or a home's walls. The birdcage around the parakeet was another mere suggestion--perhaps there was no cage at all, but a patio where the bird resided when it chose. About the brunette head of the girl was the ghost of a glow, the lightness of the background to suggest purity and innocence.

But the eyes, oh the eyes.

There was nothing in them. Nothing to suggest that this girl was anything more than a porcelain doll, a manufactured face on a manufactured girl. Her lips were barely pursed and her face so plain--how could a painter make her daughter look such? And again the eyes, staring so blankly out into space as if they contained no life at all, and had never.

Julia turned her head from the painting quickly and sighed, wringing her hands. Perhaps another gallery would be more appropriate for her lack of inspiration.

--

There are some pieces of art that touch you and change you forever. Berthe Morisot knew how to do this with all of her paintings. She was famed throughout France as one of the revolutionary artists of her time, especially for a woman. As she sat poised over her canvas, a giggle came into the room and the sound of pattering feet.

"Maman!" Her daughter chirped. Berthe could not remember when her daughter had grown so old. She was beginning to have curves; hidden by bustles of fabric she had been draped in by their over-enthusiastic neighbor. Berthe smiled slightly, looking at her daughter's face. She could see her husband in her features, her hair, and her movements. Her daughter, Anne, made the world brighter in their dreary home--so silent with her husband away.

Berthe was working on a commission from one of the more wealthy members of society in town; she had gotten the sketch down earlier with the man posed before her, but he had needed to rush off for some crisis or another so she was left to think about how she was to proceed. Her daughter giggled again, from behind her, wrapping her arms around her mother's waist and rubbing her face into the small of Berthe's back.

"Not now, Anne, I'm working."

Her daughter sighed, her arms falling limp but still about her mother's sides. "Later Maman, later!" She perked up once more and danced around her mother's canvas once, twice, before disappearing outside into the garden. Berthe smiled, bringing her paintbrush upwards slowly. Her hand shook.

Suddenly the world was no longer bright and cheerful. She could still see her daughter dancing in circles outside in the sunshine, but it did not help her calm herself.

There was a consequence to making beautiful paintings. There was a magic in her canvas that made art beautiful and ugly at the same time. This magic stole from the posed the life they had, the soul they cherished inside them. Her paintings were made beautiful because of the life that had inspired them. The life that they now took as their own.

Berthe placed her paintbrush down, unable to continue. No one had realized yet, so what had she to worry about? All people knew of her art was that it made people happy, that it was beautiful and worthy. No one had noticed the one thing that made her paintings different from others: the subject's eyes.

It was the only way anyone could ever find out where Berthe's beautiful paintings truly came from. If they ever knew, if they were ever aware... Berthe shuddered at the thought, gathering her skirts and standing at the back glass door, staring at her beautiful daughter dancing among the flowers. The sunshine down on her lightly brunette locks which twirled about the girl, and glinted off the shining skirts of Anne's new clothing. When Berthe looked at her daughter, the world was right. When she looked at her paintbrush, the world was ending. Berthe crossed her arms and leaned against the door, attempting a smile when her daughter called out to her before performing a cartwheel. Berthe applauded, sadly, but portraying all the motherly pride she could muster at that moment. Her daughter was perfect, full of life, and that was why she would not paint her.

--

Anne wanted to be painted. She wanted her mother to paint her, make her pretty, like she did for her other subjects. She wanted to wear a pretty dress and sit on a pretty chair, staring straight and making sure not to flinch so her mother could make her beautiful.

But her mother always said no.

Her mother never seemed to notice Anne practicing her poses just off to the side of her mother's subjects, remaining perfectly still, hoping that just by chance her mother would find her so appealing that she just had to paint a portrait of her. Anne tested the poses of each new commissioner herself. A burly, fat man came into their home one autumn morning before her mother's canvas, and Anne puffed up her cheeks and sat perfectly still, her arms stuck to her sides as if they were too large to move properly. When the man rocked back and forth, uncomfortable on his small seat, Anne rocked as well, hoping something she did would catch her mother's attention. Yet her efforts never amounted to much but a stern reprimand and an order to play elsewhere.

One day, when it was raining particularly harshly and her mother had been called out to paint one of the famous people in town for their birthday, Anne got an inkling to see what it was like.

Her mother's home canvas, where she would paint ordinary things like their pet parakeet, Frannie, was still set up as if her mother had just gone to take a nap and would be back soon. The way the rain poured, Anne knew that wasn't true.

Nevertheless, Anne tugged a small chair from the parlor in front of her mother's big white canvas. Then she gathered her skirts and placed herself daintily on the chair, not facing directly towards the canvas with anything but her face. Her feet barely touched the ground. She pursed her lips, her eyes narrowing just a little bit as she tried to put her face in a way she remembered her mother making other people do. She fiddled with the end of her hair, tied up behind her and draped just slightly over her shoulder.

A door in the house banged.

Anne turned, scared, as her mother came dripping wet, stripping off her raincoat and letting it fall to the floor. She untied the ribbon beneath her chin and let her hat fall onto her coat.

"Three hours and I'm not even paid. If they didn't want my work, why did they send for me?" Her mother crossed into the room and Anne shivered, bringing her legs up onto the chair. She had never heard her mother speak so harshly before. The rain outside crashed against the back window.

"Anne, what are you doing over there?" Although her mother tried to sound softer, Anne could still feel the harsh tones underneath her mother's cool exterior. She whimpered.

"Oh, ma petite, sorry, mum's just had a long day." Her mother practically fell onto her stool and her face was hidden behind the canvas. Anne tilted her head, leaning over the chair to catch a glimpse of her mother's face. All she could see was the hand that rubbed her mother's forehead. Anne whimpered again and returned to her pose on the chair. Lightning flashed through the glass doors behind her.

Suddenly her mother's voice filled the all but silent house. "How would Anne like Maman to paint her in her lovely new dress?" Anne's eyes widened with joy and she nodded her head vigorously, even though her mother could not see. Eagerly she scampered off to her bedroom to change into her peach gown, excited to be finally one of the pretty people beneath her mother's paintbrush.

--

Julia found herself in the gallery again, sitting on the floor in front of the painting of an artist's daughter. She perched her elbow on one knee and her chin her palm, staring at the girl's lifeless eyes. Everything about the picture was beautiful, even the dark colors in the background. The wall behind the girl looked like a tempest, a thunderstorm of mounting proportions surrounding the young girl.

Things about the painting she never noticed before leaped out at her--the ring on the girl's middle finger, the bow about the girl's waist. The parakeet's little seat in its suggestion of a cage. She sighed, her eyes returning to the girl's eyes. How was it that something so beautiful could look so haunting to her? Perhaps it was just her writer's eyes seeing something and not being able to truly enjoy it. Julia did not think this was so, but the way she shuddered every time she looked the girl in the eye told her that perhaps she was just thinking too hard.

She got up quietly, hoping not to interrupt the silence that walked the halls of the gallery like guests never had. Tilting her head to the side with her arms crossed over the chest, she stared at the girl one more time, letting herself shudder as she had hundreds of times before.

She must have been thinking too hard.

--

It was Frannie's death that reminded Berthe of what she had done on a stormy night days before. Anne came running into her bedroom, waking her from a midday nap with whimpering and choked sobs. In the girl's pale hands was the green little bird, completely lifeless. Berthe remembered it sitting in its cage above her daughter's head as she painted in fervor, upset over a loss of pay and her still absent husband. She took the parakeet in her hands as Anne climbed onto her bed to nuzzle beside her, tears slipping down the girl's already red and blotchy cheeks. Berthe put her other arm around her daughter's shoulders. She looked at Frannie in her palm, unable to say a word. Her daughter's tears stained her gown.

They buried the bird in the backyard, a proper burial with an ode to Frannie (given by Anne herself, who spoke more to the little bird than to her mother). After she spoke, Anne placed a flower gingerly on Frannie's wooden coffin, a box Berthe had hoped to give to Anne later in life under much more pleasant circumstances. She watched her daughter hug the box tightly to her chest, before placing it in the hole Berthe had dug for her. Berthe looked at her daughter and how pale the girl had become, even with tears running down her face. She clutched at the girl's hand, hoping to remember always how real it felt.

--

Anne was tired. She had never remembered being this tired before. She walked through the house dizzy, her arms out to feel for the walls and furniture. She called out for her mother, or thought she did, before slipping the corner of a rug in a room she couldn't recognize. She fell the floor like a feather, slowly. She felt no pain, only tiredness. She could no longer move her arms and legs. She sighed, letting the breath escape her in a rush. She was so tired... Where was her mother?

Just out the corner of her eye, although her eyes had fallen shut some time ago, she could see the fluttering of something green. A chirp in her ear made her smile, although she could not feel her lips. Was that Frannie? Was that her little bird? She tried to reach out for the bird, but could not, as her arms did not move.

But what did it matter? Frannie was there. She'd come closer soon, Anne was sure. And then her mother could make them dinner and her father would come home. They would be together. Papa, Maman, Anne and Frannie.

Always.