The Colour of Heaven

by Runcie, James

  Simone told Paolo that he must know every part of the process of painting: preparing charcoal for drawing, making brushes, paper, and pens, and collecting eggs with which to bind pigment and make the paint tempera mixture. He had to sift lime and sand, prepare plaster, smooth panels, and then, at last, when he fully understood the process, he would be allowed to work with colour.

  ‘What are you painting?’ asked Paolo.

  ‘Everything,’ replied Simone. ‘Alpha and Omega. The beginning and the end.’

  ‘You are painting heaven?’

  ‘And hell. Out of this humble earth. Can you believe it?’ The artist spoke like a showman addressing an audience. ‘I select each ingredient, like a wife at the market. I cook with paint.’ He crumbled a piece of ochre between his thumb and forefinger. ‘As a chef coaxes flavour so I encourage colour: with egg and tempera, red madder, and saffron. These are my ingredients and my spices.’ He flicked the paint away. ‘There is only one difference.’

  ‘And what is that?’

  ‘The meal I create is everlasting.’

  Simone was happiest when he had an audience, and Paolo began to wonder if his apprentices were employed not only to undertake the menial tasks which their master had outgrown, but also to provide constant attention, ever ready to laugh at his wit. Keeping Simone amused was almost half of the work because he could be plunged into depression at any moment, such was the fragility of his confidence and, Paolo noticed, his fondness for wine. The man could move from exhilaration to despair in an instant, which made all those who worked for him both nervous and watchful.

  At times Simone would throw down his brush, leaving the workshop to drink with his friends, returning too inebriated to continue. He would then compensate for such wildness by working without stopping for thirty-six hours. Talented, unpredictable, and easily distracted, he sometimes gave his pupils astonishing bursts of responsibility.

  ‘Lippo, do the hands – Mino, finish this halo – Ugolino, decorate the cloak of the Virgin.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Make it up!’

  Paolo began by preparing charcoal for drawing: taking strands of willow and cutting them into matchsticks, smoothing and sharpening them like spindles, tying them in bunches, and then placing them in an earthenware pot which he took each night to the baker’s, letting the strands roast until morning.

  After four months he learned how to work with colour, grinding pigment from stone on slabs of porphyry or serpentine. In order to make azure, he would boil up hot alkaline mixtures of honey and lye in a series of bowls and then add the pigment, keeping a close eye as the colour gradually settled. Once he had drawn off the liquid, he would be left with paint ready to bind with egg yolk and apply to either panel or fresco.

  Just as he had learned to define each shade of stone and glass, so Paolo now began to see how paint could lighten or darken, enrich, or become dull in a moment.

  ‘Our task is nothing less than to show the glory of God’s creation. Painting is an act of faith, Paolo. We tell stories, inspire devotion. This is the land of miracles’ – Simone smiled – ‘even if they sometimes become repetitive.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Saints can be tedious, do you not think? There are only so many ways in which a painter can depict devotion. Hell is so much more diverting.’ As they blended pigment with egg yolks, Simone began to tell Paolo of his ambition to paint a Last Judgment: the dead emerging from the cracks and fissures of the earth, skeletal, ghostly, waiting either to be clothed in flesh or tormented in hell, haunted by a pale blue light. As he warmed to his theme the story became filled with dreadful detail. There would be blazing rivers and bottomless pits of volcanic despair containing the stained souls of the damned, blackened by sin and lit with flames. Usurers would have to swallow hot coins, and sodomites would be skewered like pigs. Slanderers with their mouths stretched and cut open would be seen with their teeth ground to a pulp and then re-grown only to be pulverised once more. The painting should be a vision of eternal misery, and above it all would be Satan with three bastard heads, bat’s wings, and Judas hanging, half-eaten, from his mouth.

  ‘So you can see that painting heaven is somewhat dull after all that,’ Simone concluded. ‘We need drama, not everlasting felicity. But this, of course, is our challenge. To make paradise exciting. A place beyond belief.’

  Although he was a craftsman by day Simone was something of a dandy by night, wearing a different tunic for each evening’s passeggiata, but cut in the same style, and always in velvet: maroon on a Monday, azure on a Tuesday, vermilion on a Wednesday, burnt gold on a Thursday, lamp black on a Friday, crimson on a Saturday, and white on a Sunday. He rubbed his gums with mint, shaved, washed, and then scented himself with rosewater. Before he left the workshop he checked his appearance in a silvered mirror, and adjusted his curling hair accordingly. Life was a performance and he was its leading actor, presenting and perfuming himself before the world.

  The true test of his showmanship came when the Commune of the City announced a competition to paint a fresco of the Coronation of the Virgin, a Maestà, for the Palazzo Pubblico. All the painters of the city were invited to compete: Segna di Buonaventura, Memmo di Filippuccio, Dietisalvi, and Simone. This was the first great secular commission, and it would rival Duccio’s golden Maestà in the cathedral, filling the east wall of the town hall.

  Simone was determined to win and set to work immediately, laying out sketches of saints and angels, martyrs, apostles, and church fathers. He began to experiment with azurite and malachite, and brought in great swathes of fabric on which he could base his design for the Virgin’s mantle. Two assistants were asked to find new ways of gilding metal, so that the haloes of the saints would glow under candlelight as evening fell.

  ‘This is not only painting,’ he cried; ‘we must be the envy of all other trades: the goldsmiths, the weavers, and the dressmakers. We must paint what cannot be achieved on earth. That is our secret. We will depict the impossible.’

  Paolo was asked to make charcoal for the preparatory drawings – the Virgin as Mother of God and Queen of Heaven, holding the Christ child, with the four patron saints of the city kneeling below: Ansanus, Savinus, Crescentius, and Victor.

  ‘Hold still,’ cried Simone. ‘You make a perfect saint. Keep working.’

  As Paolo bound each twig of willow, Simone began to draw him. The pale face and blond hair curling under the ears. The thin nose. Long fingers. And Paolo’s strangely quiet blue eyes, endlessly puzzled, curious, surprised.

  ‘Which saint am I?’

  ‘Ansanus, the young Roman nobleman who first baptised the Sienese. Try to look more spiritual.’

  ‘I don’t feel very spiritual.’

  ‘Then look serene.’

  ‘Can’t I just be myself?’

  ‘No, no, that is not the point at all. Have you not listened to anything I have said? We must turn men into angels and make the heavens sing. Colour and joy. We are painting infinity,’ Simone cried.

  Over three hundred councillors assembled to discuss the commission. Each painter had been asked to present his ideas in the council chamber where the Signori of the Nine, and the Consiglio della Campana gathered around their drawings. One painter suggested a celebratory painting of the recent acquisition of Talamone and a glorious gallery of all lands recently conquered. Another put forward his plan for an enormous panel of the Battle of Montaperti and the conquest of Montalcino; while a third proposed a representation of the day Buonaguida Lucari had laid the keys of the city on the altar of the cathedral and donated all that they had to the mercy of the Virgin Mary, their protectress against the iniquitous and evil Florentines.

  As his rivals struggled to make their case, Simone was both impatient and exhilarated, for he was convinced that none could match his vision of divine beneficence.

  ‘This is my plan,’ he announced. ‘The Court of Heaven and the Seat of Good Government presiding over us all. I will paint the other, eter
nal world: things unseen and unimagined. The fresco will be a banner from heaven and a blessing on earth, containing all riches. Wisdom. Stillness. Calm. I will show you wonders.’

  He walked over to the windows. ‘As the light from the south wall forever changes, so will this painting. Each time you look you will discover truth. The Virgin will sit high above us in an exquisitely embroidered mantle, a garment so rich and so beautiful that it will make the textile workers weep to see it. Her throne will echo that which sits below in the council chamber, and her seat will be our inspiration for both justice and mercy. She will offer us the Christ child, our salvation from death, our guide to the divine and our Redeemer. The scroll held by the child will be of paper, the text of ink. Love justice, you who love the earth. The Book of Wisdom.

  ‘Everything about this Maestà will reflect the majesty of maternal love. There will be jewels in the clothing of the Madonna and diamonds in the tracery of the windows behind her. In the distance the sky will darken into an infinite blue without limit, for there is no end to the glory of paradise. I will turn pigments from the earth, real earth, into heaven.’

  Simone made a low bow.

  ‘I offer you stillness, joy, and peace. My painting will depict our gift from God, the everlasting bounty of heaven, and the grace of our salvation. I have seen this beauty. Only let me paint it for you, here in this room, a divine blessing on our fair and noble city.’

  The councillors were silent. The commission was won.

  By the time Simone returned home to the workshop he was drunk.

  ‘Victory,’ he cried. ‘Victory by St Victor. This is a noble day. We have routed our enemies and made straight the high road to our salvation. The whole town attests to my brilliance.’

  At first his apprentices were almost frightened by such exuberance, unable to understand quite what their master was saying.

  ‘I will smooth plaster with the thighbone of a gelded lamb. I will burnish each halo with sapphire. We shall prosper, and we shall vanquish all. Salute! Salute! Grandi amici!’

  More wine was opened, and Simone began to elaborate on his performance, telling all who would listen of his plan to create eternity in paint.

  ‘The divine stillness, this is what I have promised, the life of the spirit on this earth. A foretaste of heaven.’

  ‘And how will we do this?’ asked Paolo.

  Simone seemed oddly reluctant to answer.

  ‘By genius and hard work, of course,’ he replied testily.

  But Paolo could see that Simone was looking at him strangely, as if he had suddenly remembered something important.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked when they were alone.

  Simone looked embarrassed. ‘There is something I must confess to you, now that we have secured the commission.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Paolo.

  ‘When I was talking to the Consiglio I told them a story.’

  There was something about Simone’s apologetic tone that made Paolo uneasy.

  ‘What was it?’

  ‘It was of a man who had recently been a prisoner in Genoa.’

  ‘I have heard the apprentices talk of such a person. The man of a million lies.’

  ‘Exactly. Only this time I think he was telling the truth.’

  ‘Continue.’

  ‘He had travelled the world for many years, and he had seen the most miraculous sights. He had been to Persia, Cathay, and the Indies. He had seen golden men. Wondrous palaces. Horses descended from Bucephalus. Flocks of cranes filling the sky. But when I asked him to tell me the greatest of the wonders, he stopped, as if no one had asked him such a question before. He spoke quickly and secretively; telling of a mountain hidden away on the edge of the world which contained the most perfect blue stone. It was lapis lazuli, the truest blue he had ever seen, and it seemed that the colour would last for all eternity.

  ‘I asked him if he thought a man could make paint from such a stone, and he told me that if such a thing were possible then it would be as if a man were painting the dome of heaven, so precious and perfect was that colour.

  ‘This is what I told the Consiglio. That, from the moment I heard this story, I have been determined to acquire that blue. And I will do so. It will be the glory of the city.’

  ‘But how can we find such a colour?’

  ‘It has to be gathered from the ends of the earth.’

  ‘And how will we do that?’

  ‘This is the awkward moment.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I told them that you would go.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Clearly I cannot go myself, because I will be painting; but you, who know, love, and understand colour … think of the joy of such a discovery. A blue that is not fugitive or transitory but permanent and eternal.’

  ‘But I can hardly see my way out of the door. How could I ever make such a journey?’

  ‘I will give you a guide.’

  ‘That’s no use.’

  ‘He’s very reliable.’

  ‘Who is he?’

  ‘Jacopo, a jewel merchant. He’s Venetian like you. I am sure that you will find his company agreeable.’

  Paolo was so taken aback that he could only continue the argument. ‘And why is he going?’

  ‘Because he is obsessed with jade and is determined to go to Cathay to find it. The mountain is almost on the way. In Badakhshan.’

  ‘But it will be thousands of miles.’

  ‘Think of the adventure. How few will have made such a journey.’

  ‘And how few have survived. You are mad.’

  ‘Jacopo is keen. I told him you had the most extraordinary gift for colour.’

  ‘How kind of you.’

  ‘You should be grateful. Such an adventure.’

  ‘You go then.’

  ‘Alas, my talent must remain here.’

  ‘And how long did you say the painting would take?’

  ‘About a year.’

  ‘But that is too short.’

  Simone reached for more wine. ‘Don’t worry about deadlines. It only encourages them.’

  Paolo could not believe Simone’s nerve. ‘Let me understand. You have promised that Jacopo and I will travel to the ends of the earth in search of a colour we do not know exists and return within a year?’

  ‘Or two. It doesn’t matter too much as long as you do, indeed, return.’

  ‘And what if I say no?’

  ‘You won’t. You love me. You love colour. It will make your fortune. And then, in paint, we will enter time itself. The blue will let us penetrate the mystery and understand the nature of God’s creation, our infinite and eternal future. By seeing this perfect blue we will be given a glimpse of everlasting life.’

  ‘But what if Jacopo will not take me?’

  ‘He will. You will be his Sabbath Gentile.’

  ‘And what is that?’

  ‘I can never remember how it works. You carry things on holy days because they can’t. Something like that. So Saturdays are busy. He is coming to eat with us this evening.’

  ‘But how will I live?’

  ‘I will give you some money. And then you must do what the verixelli do. Take our glass and trade it as stone. A few real sapphires amidst the glass and you could do well.’ Simone appeared to have thought of everything.

  ‘I would have to lie.’

  ‘You have already learned to lie about your sight. It would not be such a big untruth; all merchants exaggerate the worth of their wares.’

  ‘And if I fail?’

  ‘You won’t fail. I have seen how obsessed you can be. Think what such a discovery might mean. You wanted excitement in your life. I have given it to you. How else were we supposed to win the commission?’

  That night, a small Jewish man arrived at the workshop. He must have been fifty years old, for his beard had greyed, and his back had already begun to show the stoop of age. A yellow circle was fixed to his hat.

  ‘Jacopo,’ cried Simone, ‘my friend. T
he man who knows the way.’

  ‘I am foolish coming here,’ the old man murmured, ‘and I do so only as a favour to your uncle.’

  ‘On the contrary,’ said Simone, ‘it is you who are being given the blessing.’

  ‘I have heard that you have a boy who might help me on my travels. Is this the one?’

  Simone nodded.

  Jacopo looked at Paolo as if he were buying a slave in the market, assessing his size, weight, and strength. ‘I am told that you have a keen eye.’

  ‘I can tell stone for stone and glass for glass.’

  ‘Then let us begin.’

  ‘Already?’ asked Paolo.

  ‘Why not?’ Jacopo reached into his pocket and pulled out a velvet pouch from which he removed four stones. ‘Three of these are false: glass. One is true. Tell me which is which.’

  Paolo started with a sapphire.

  ‘This is not real.’

  ‘And how would you know?’

  ‘It is too clear. A sapphire is like the darkest sea …’

  ‘Go on …’

  ‘Held up to the light, it changes. The flaws refract. This stone is too good. It needs imperfections, uncertainty. If you mean to deceive, a glass should have a flaw.’

  ‘When did you last see a sapphire?’ Jacopo asked.

  ‘When I was a child. My mother had a ring.’

  ‘You can remember?’

  ‘I know the blue of stone and the blue of glass.’

  Now Paolo held a ruby up to the light. He brought it close to his eye and then moved it away again, at a distance.

  ‘Like blood,’ he said.

  ‘What kind of blood?’

  ‘New sprung.’

  ‘The great Tartar Emperor once said that he would give a whole city for such a stone.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Simone.

  ‘Perhaps he had too much poison in his bones, or too much grief.’

  ‘Rubies can cure such things?’ asked Simone.

  ‘Jewels have strange powers,’ Jacopo argued. ‘They say that coral tied to the neck drives away troublesome dreams and the nightly fears of children, and that creeping things fly from the scent of jet.’