History of Art

by Margaret Luongo

  He schools himself now, by making this book. Along the edges of each page he has drawn pictures of the insects that pollinate the flowers, the birds that nest in the boughs of the trees, the animals found nearby. He draws full miniatures of each tree, flower, plant, and shrub, along with close-ups of their leaves, stems, petals, and nuts. For the magnolia (“Southern Magnolia, Magnolia grandiflora”), he has drawn the tree in our front yard, with a partial sketch of our brick-and-cinderblock house in the background. In the margin, he has drawn a small Dean in tie and khakis, and me in a flippy skirt and running shoes. I laugh at the sight—I would never wear running shoes with a skirt. He has made me angular and girlish, about ten years younger-looking than I am. My freckles are there, and I’m smiling. I tap my finger on my colored-pencil self. She looks to be having a fine time.

  I start to notice things, too: the longleaf pine needles collecting at the base of the Mercedes’s windshield; the mashed pinecones everywhere in the street; the fine grains of black and white sand embedded in the asphalt of the driveway; the dried magnolia flowers that look like the hulls of giant seeds. On the way to see Coach Tuesday night, I listen to the Mercedes’s engine, a loud diesel purr I usually drown out with the radio. I hope Coach tells me he doesn’t need me for the job, that he’s handling it himself. I shouldn’t have brought it up. He’s already sitting at an outdoor table when I arrive.

  “Where’s your new recruit?” I say as I sit down.

  He shifts in his seat a bit stiffly and angles his face away from mine.

  “Boyfriend troubles,” he says.

  Coach has a cut high on his cheekbone, and there’s blood in the white of his eye. I don’t ask about it. Instead, I tell him about the paintings. He agrees that they sound interesting and tells me I should contact one of the local galleries to show them. He doesn’t mention his own business, and he seems chagrined about something. He allows himself to be distracted by the ring on my right hand, the dinner ring my father gave my mother for their eighteenth wedding anniversary, the one that left a red mark and scratches on Janice when I backhanded her. It had come from an estate sale and is something meant for after five. The center diamond is emerald cut—a whimsical and misguided choice. The emerald cut doesn’t have enough facets, so the brilliance of the diamond is never brought forth. It is an extravagant waste. The stones surrounding the center stone form a ring so wide it grazes my knuckle. After my mother died, I put it on as a joke and never took it off.

  “Is that real?”

  I assure him it is, and I tell him the story of the ring.

  “Why the eighteenth anniversary?”

  “He didn’t see why twenty was more special than eighteen or fifty better than forty-nine.” I shrug.

  “No offense,” Coach says, “but that thing’s tacky.”

  “That’s kind of the point,” I say, though I’d forgotten that. “I don’t even like it.”

  Coach laughs. “Why wear it?”

  “It’s funny?”

  We sit silently for a moment, Coach with his white hair blown away from his face by the breeze of his perpetual forward motion, and me squeezing my fist until the ring digs into the sides of my fingers.

  “I got rid of my mother’s stuff this weekend.”

  I breathe deeply and sigh.

  “Packed it all in boxes and hauled it over to Goodwill.”

  “Good,” I say. “Really.” I feel relieved for both of us.

  I walk him to his car. In the darkness of the lot, in this transitional place where neither of us will look each other in the eye, I can’t refrain from asking. “Soooo,” I say.

  “Sew buttons,” he says.

  “What happened to your face?”

  “Ah—that.” We get to his car and he hauls himself onto the trunk. He leans back against the rear windshield. I settle next to him. The car is still warm from the day’s sun.

  “Shelley—”

  “The nonrunner at the track?”

  “Yeah.” He’s about to tell the story, but he interrupts himself. “I don’t understand young women.”

  “Yes, you do. Tell the story.”

  “She wants to get a piercing.”

  “OK.”

  “In a place with a lot of nerve endings.”

  I am pained for Coach. “Is that how she put it?”

  “I won’t repeat what she said. It’s too dumb.”

  I imagine her giggly and coy, hinting around, then blurting something vulgar or childish. “Why did she tell you?”

  “You know how people talk when they run.”

  I inventory all the things I’ve told Coach while running, and I vow to be more circumspect. “Did she say why she wanted it?”

  “She said she wants to feel more.”

  I wince. “So what did you say?”

  “I said, ‘Ouch.’ Then I told her I could help her feel more.”

  “Oh, no.”

  “Then she kissed me.”

  “Did you stop her?”

  “Not right away.”

  The car feels very warm now. We sit a while in silence.

  “Anyway, I told her I meant that I’d get her running hard every day. Then she’d feel—her feet, her shins, her knees, her hip flexors, her quadriceps—not to mention the sense of accomplishment. She thought I was making fun of her.”

  “So she decked you?”

  “She ran off crying. Her boyfriend—”

  “If she has a boyfriend, what’s she doing at the track all the time?”

  “Sometimes one boyfriend is not enough. It takes a village, you know.”

  “Well,” I say, “I’m sorry that happened. You don’t deserve it.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You should have stopped kissing her sooner.” I give him a playful backhand above his knee, and he grabs my hand. He holds on and rubs the back of it with his thumb. I wait to see what happens. He places his thumb over the ring and presses down. “Get rid of this thing,” he says. “You’re too old for costumes.”

  Swallowing is hard. “Get rid of it?”

  “Stop wearing it.”

  I relax a little. I expect him to assign me a penance of miles and intervals, but instead he invites me to breakfast Saturday after a long run. I frown at him. “You’re up to something.”

  He gets up, stiff-legged. “You’re paranoid.” He stretches. “Get rid of that thing, seriously. It’s ugly.”

  I know he’s right. I’ve associated myself with something in poor taste, that isn’t even funny anymore—or never was. On the way home I consider throwing it out the window, but that seems excessive, an extravagant gesture, much like the ring itself. And what has it ever done to me? At the thought of selling it, a steel door in my brain slams shut. The ring will not be sold. In its ugliness, it is unique. Stopped at a light, I slide it from my finger, open the ashtray and drop it in. My fingers feel much slimmer. I can make a tight fist, and each finger can feel itself against its mates. “For the right occasion,” I tell the ring, and then I correct myself. No more lying: the right occasion doesn’t exist. What did my father think he was making fun of?

  Janice comes by on Saturday after my run and breakfast with Coach. She walks quickly from her car to the door, her long black hair whipping around her. We’ve been talking about throwing a fancy party for Valentine’s Day, at which we would unveil Paul’s new topiary: Cupids with bows and arrows, and ivy trained to climb on hearts and X’s and O’s. Since Dean’s revelation, however, I have been avoiding her calls. She lets herself in, and I stop her between the kitchen and the foyer.

  “Dean tells me you think I’m a phony,” she says.

  “I said that all your clients end up with outdoorsy jobs. It’s an observation.”

  She walks past me and stops at the place where her teapot was on New Year’s Day. “I see the teapot’s gone.”

  “Janice,” I begin, but she won’t let me finish.

  “Never mind. It doesn’t matter.”

  Then she makes apparen
t the reason for her visit. “Why don’t you come to my office? We can help you.”

  I’m still holding the plate I was about to put away when she walked in, and I grip it a little tighter. I would like to change out of my running clothes, shower, and nap. Dean is out for a long walk in the woods with his sketchbook. We’ve been grilling out in the evenings, and he shows me his book. It’s filling with his gently colored drawings of our little world. Every day I look forward to seeing what Dean sees, our same surroundings, but different. Everything has changed. I cannot tell Janice she is a fraud.

  “Did you see the new paintings?” I walk to the foyer and she follows. “You were in such a state when you came in.” Standing before them, I feel an affection that spills over onto Janice, just because she’s near.

  “Where did you get these?” she asks, as if I have done something very bad by having them. I tell her. She shakes her head and gestures to the canvases. “You can’t tell what time it is.”

  “It’s the light, Janice.” I am touched by her literal-mindedness. “You have to look. Each one is different.”

  She stares at the paintings. I wait and wait for her to understand.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I never know what you’re talking about.”

  It occurs to me that Janice might never ever understand. I wonder how I will feel about her if this proves true. “Janice,” I say, “the teapot was ugly. Dean thought so too.”

  She gives me a tired look. “What does Dean know? I tell him it’s his destiny to be a naturalist. I think he’ll go back to school, get some useful degree, but what does he do? He makes drawings of leaves!” She spits out this last as if it’s a piece of poisonous bark.

  It occurs to me that Janice might like to work in nature. I tell her.

  Her face goes pink. She seems to quiver just beneath her skin, as if she is made of something molten, about to burst and shower us with her liquid fire.

  “You know what? You pain me. This place”—she gestures to the foyer, the walls, the house—“you’re rotting in here. Can’t you do something new with your life?”

  I look past Janice and catch my reflection in Mother’s silver tea service. My cheekbones appear in the shoulders of the coffee urn, high and white, and my mouth stretches long. My eyes are dark pits. I imagine pounding each piece flat with a rubber mallet—the coffee urn, the teapot, the sugar bowl and creamer—and hanging it in pieces on the wall, where I could gaze into the shallow, fragmented pools of myself. I feel the plate in my hand—part of Mother’s Wedgwood set. The blue band around the edge is heavy with decoration, layers of raised enamel under my fingertips. The pattern crowds the edge of the plate. In the center, a variation of the pattern repeats itself in tight circles. I see quiet dinners Janice and I have taken with our parents, the dishes and glasses, crystal and china, salt cellars and candlesticks of the dead all around us. The smell of the shop presses in: the faint smell of mildew and mold, in my own home—in my parents’ home—so familiar, so comfortable. I look Janice in the eye, raise the plate over my head, and hurl it at the floor between us. She flinches and twists away. Splinters of blue and red china flare around us, already something new.

  SEEING BIRDS

  Equipment

  The only essential equipment for seeing birds is a pair of eyes.1

  Where to Look

  In the woods behind your home, among the reeds around the drainage pond, in the trees that line the streets in your neighborhood; downtown on the sidewalks, by the side of the road when you’re driving to work, overhead as you walk through the lot from your car to the office, out the window when you stare over your coffee cup on break. On vacation, wherever you are—at the beach, the lake, the cabin in the mountains.

  How to Look

  With your eyes, not your memory. Your memory can’t be trusted. You think you’ve seen birds, and maybe you have, but can you describe the last bird you saw? A silhouette of a buzzard (or was it a hawk?) as you drove through the countryside to your in-laws’ house; a starling, somewhere—aren’t they everywhere?—one of those tiny pied creatures pecking at the asphalt in front of the bagel shop early Sunday morning. These generic birds that you’ve seen thousands of times, you don’t really see them anymore, and when you think of them, your half-powered brain plugs in a vague image—enough to satisfy the urge to recall bird.

  Why Look?

  If you aren’t looking, what are you seeing? Your coffee? The window glass? Air? The white field with black letters on your device’s screen? In terms of visual diet, a starvation ration.

  Parts of a Bird

  Resist naming the parts of the bird; words dispel the image. What does wing look like? Or bill or tail? No one image belongs to wing or bill or tail, so naming is useless for seeing.

  Bird Classification

  Birds can be classified one of two ways:

  1. The bird before you now.

  2. All other birds—figments of your poor memory and imagi­nation.

  NOTE: Even the bird before you may be compromised.

  How to Look

  Forget everything you think you know about birds. Forget the word bird.

  Family Tree of Birds

  In North America alone, one can find nearly fifteen hundred species of birds.2 If I say to you plover what image comes to mind? How about pied-bill grebe or merganser? My guess is nothing comes to mind. You could attempt to memorize the exact features of these birds—fifteen hundred species in North America!—but you’re not going to. You might make an attempt by keeping a book on your nightstand and paging through, looking—really looking—at a few color drawings or photographs before bedtime, memorizing the shape of the bill, the curve of the throat, breast, and belly, the parts of the wing and its various shapes, the feet—webbed, feathered, grasping, perching—the silhouette of the head. That seems unlikely, doesn’t it? You’ll only ever see about one hundred species in your own territory,3 and you probably won’t even remember to look for them, unless you set aside specific time for that.

  Taking a Scientific Approach

  Are you a scientist? I think you are probably not up to the task, but I admire you for trying to see like a scientist, to make notes—again with those words—to keep data, and to make a habit of viewing birds throughout the day, to see them fully by understanding their habitats, feeding patterns, mating, and migration. That sounds like a full-time occupation. I don’t think you can see birds this way, but bravo for trying!

  Bird Photography

  While it’s true that taking the picture is more active than looking at pictures in books, essentially you are letting the camera look for you. Then what—you examine the photograph, committing to memory the size, shape, features, and colors? I think we know how that goes. Even as you look, your poor lazy brain will insist “Bird! Bird! I know this one!” and it will offer up what it thinks it knows about birds, instead of actual information about this very bird before you. Furthermore, while taking the picture, you will be preoccupied with lighting, composition, context, and the technical aspects of the camera and lens. All this will distract you from the actual bird.

  How to Look

  I think you see where this is going: Words are out; photography is out; your eyes, let’s face it, in concert with your brain, are just about useless. You’re going to have draw birds, if you really want to see them.

  NOTE: Cartoon birds are cute; stylized and impressionistic birds show that you know a few things about line, form, and maybe color, but these are more about you and less about birds. You are still not seeing birds. You are representing birds in a way that pleases you.

  1. Assemble your supplies:

  —Heavy duty paper that will stand up to erasing

  —A set of pencils in varying tones

  —A variety of erasers, as many as you can find

  —A straightedge and T-square, to help situate your bird in space

  2. Find a bird—a really still bird, one that is sleeping or lame. Check wildlife san
ctuaries for eagles brain-damaged from eating lead-filled carrion left behind by hunters without dogs.

  3. Sit comfortably with your bird. Allow several hours.

  NOTE: Your brain, eyes, and memory will try to trick you. Check the lines you make with the lines of the actual bird. Don’t be lazy—does the belly really curve that way? No? Erase and try again. Use your pencil to assess the bird’s proportions.

  TIP: Don’t become demoralized. Almost everything you do will be wrong. Don’t be afraid to erase. Don’t be afraid to start over.

  NOTE: When you have the lines right, congratulate yourself on your success. You will now go on to ruin the shading of your bird. Replenish your eraser supply, if necessary.

  When You Are Seeing the Bird

  You will know you are seeing the bird when you stop seeing its hooked bill, the yellowish cast to the white feathers around its neck, the creepy way it sometimes rocks from side to side while staring vacantly and wide-eyed; you see instead lines and shapes. The bird has vanished, and your brain sees something new. You will feel the shift—neurons firing, adrenaline rushing at this new thing, a network of lines mapping an exotic territory. Your pleasure centers have been activated by the novelty of this encounter, of a magnitude similar to orgasm or the effect of good drugs.

  NOTE: The effect is repeatable, by drawing any object—not just birds.