The Painter And The Horse
Simon King

 

It was the middle of March when he first saw the horse. Driving home from work one day, he had decided to take the winding back road instead of his normal route. He didn’t know why particularly, but he was an artist and didn’t question his instincts.

Actually, Joe wasn’t an artist. Joe wanted to be an artist. He was a painter. He loved painting, watercolours mainly; but he did not consider himself an artist. Artists, in his opinion, were those who not only made a living from their work, their art, but actually created art in the first place. He was someone who painted, and neither made much money from it nor ever believed that he had created anything which could ever be labelled “art”.

Still, he had the feelings of an artist, if not the talent to match. And he believed in going with his instincts, one of which had tonight diverted him along this narrow country road, along which he had now stopped suddenly, to look more closely at the magnificent animal he had just spotted.

He climbed out of the car and walked over to the fence edging the road and enclosing a small paddock. Looking across to the other side, he re-spied the horse he had seen from the car; dark brown, gleaming, with a splash of pure white down its nose. If there was a world of Platonic ideals of which all animals were merely shadows, this horse surely came closer to its archetype than any other example in the equine world.

Joe knew little about horses, and could not have named the breed for if his life depended on it. But that mattered not. What was important was the sleekness, elegance, and sublime beauty of the animal. It was, Joe said to himself, simply beautiful. This caused a slight smile; he remembered back to a creative writing course he had once attended, where he had been berated by the tutor for his use of the word “beautiful”. She had made valid points about using more descriptive adjectives, but he had argued then, and would most certainly argue now, that in some cases there really was no other word that fit. This horse was beautiful. It was full of beauty, pure and simple.

The horse was galloping, its dark mane and long tail flowing standards behind it. Every now and again it would slow, lower and shake its fine sculpted head, then burst into flight once more. There was no reason for its behaviour other than the sheer enjoyment it took from its own speed and agility, the wind in its face, the firm ground beneath its strong legs and hard hooves.

As Joe stood watching the horse, he realised that he must paint it. There was no desire here, no mere spotting of a suitable subject, this was compulsion. He must paint the horse. It was his duty. This would be the first occasion on which he would create something that he felt would add to the world of art, rather than merely imitating it.

From that moment until the weekend, the horse never left his mind, though he did not see it again physically until Saturday morning.

~*~

As he loaded his easel, canvas, painting kit and stool into the car early that Saturday, he thanked God for the light; an artist’s dream, clear and bright. Thank you Lord, he offered silently. The sky was an intense blue, the clouds almost unbearably bright white, the early sun reflecting their smooth-carved perfection. Providence meant for him to capture the horse to its very best advantage.

After setting up his easel and stool at the spot from which he had first seen the horse, and setting out brushes and palette, he began to make a few broad strokes of colour-wash on the paper. The beginning of a new work was always a time of mixed emotions; excitement certainly, trepidation, concern over whether he would do the subject justice, wondering about whether this would be his first “work of art”, and other less definable feelings. Today, the positives outweighed the negatives. After putting in the background, he began working on the horse itself. It was co-operatively standing still on the far side of the paddock in a perfect pose for the picture, as though it knew it was being captured in paint and wanted to give the artist its best side.

Joe worked for the next hour, looking directly at the horse, ignoring everything in his peripheral vision; slowly he became more and more frustrated. The picture was just not working out. The horse had hardly moved, was continuing to be the model subject; it was the artist who was failing. He found he simply could not capture the fine animal in the way he wanted. After a further twenty minutes of mental hair-pulling, he gave up and abandoned the sheet, putting up a fresh one. Taking a deep breath, he looked around him to see what significant changes had taken place while he had been concentrating on the horse. The light had changed, naturally, and with it the shadows had shortened. But other than those aspects, the view remained relatively unaltered. He began again.

Three more times he angrily threw down the partly finished work and re-started. Every time he came to the horse, his abilities seemed to desert him. Twice he tried starting with the horse, aiming to put in the background afterwards, but this too gave no joy. The horse simply would not be painted, although it continued to give him a series of ideal poses; it really did all it could. Around two o’clock, his patience as thin as the paper one which he painted, he gave up, angrily packed away his things, and was about to get into the car, when a noise behind him made him turn round. The horse, which had been on the other side of the paddock the last time he had looked, was now standing with its head over the fence, looking at him calmly with its huge dark brown eyes.

Joe walked back over to the fence and gently put out his hand to the horse. It sniffed and snuffled at his hand. Then he scratched its white nose and patted its cheek. The horse stood calmly, enjoying the petting, and Joe’s anger gradually faded as he stroked and patted. By the time he drove away, he was fairly sanguine about his wasted morning.

~*~

The following weekend saw Joe back at the paddock, repeating his travails of the week before. His frustration this Saturday was compounded by a damned irritating blur in his vision, something he occasionally suffered from and which was almost certainly caused by staring for too many hours at white sheets of water-colour vellum. He struggled on through six unsuccessful attempts at recording the marvellously sinuous curves and surfaces which gave the animal form. At the end of this equally fruitless day, he was even more frustrated and downhearted than the previous week, and rubbed his tired eyes in exasperation. But again, just before he left, the horse came over to him, and for ten minutes stood at the fence, allowing Joe to pet him. This time, Joe remembered he had an apple in the car that he had packed with his lunch but not eaten. He fetched the apple, cut it into four with a knife from his car, and fed it to the horse, who seemed to enjoy it immensely. Again, as Joe left the paddock, he was in a much better mood than he would have expected.

On three more Saturdays over the next couple of months, he would optimistically pack his painting gear early in the morning, drive to the paddock, and attempt in vain to create something which he felt would do justice to the creation which nature had produced. And each time he struggled a little more, mainly because of his vision; it was now blurred more often than not, and also had reduced in scope so that the edges of his view were dark and cloudy. After the last occasion, he decided that he must have a rest from his painting; his eyes were clearly very strained.

A further two weeks after this, having lain off the painting completely, but with his vision deteriorating still further, he visited the doctor. Who sent him to the casualty department at the local hospital. Who referred him to the ophthalmic registrar. Who diagnosed Glaucoma, in both eyes.

‘There are treatments available, in the form of medication. These, I have to tell you, are not one hundred percent successful, but we have seen encouraging results with this latest type. This is the one I’m going to try first, okay? Try not to worry too much.’

‘What happens if it doesn’t work? Could I go blind?’

‘Well, let’s just take things one step at time, shall we? If you don’t respond to this particular treatment, there are several others to try. Let’s not get too despondent, eh?’

‘But I could go blind, couldn’t I?’

‘Well, in some cases yes, Open-Angle Glaucoma can lead to blindness. But, as I say, there have been some very encouraging results in the U.S. with this particular drug. So, let’s try and keep positive shall we?’

~*~

Joe’s condition did not respond to the new treatment; did not, in fact, respond to any treatment. Six weeks and four days after that first appointment with the doctor, Joe’s morningless night fell. He saw no more.

He soon came to realise that, although coming to terms with blindness is an immense struggle for anyone who suffers it, for an artist it is doubly painful. Not only was he denied the vision of the physical world, he was also denied the opportunity to represent it in his chosen medium. For Joe, the first eight months of darkness were the worst of his life, far worse than anything he could ever have imagined. He attempted suicide twice. Both attempts were unsuccessful, although the second came much closer to fulfilling his intentions. He spent a lengthy period in hospital, firstly recovering from the overdose of painkillers he had taken with three-quarters of a bottle of brandy, then on a psychiatric ward, where he was assigned a counsellor as well as a psychiatrist. Between them, they gradually managed to bring Joe through his bleakest days, and after just over a month he was discharged and went home.

During this time, he had been making steady progress, when his depression relented sufficiently to allow it, with learning how to navigate through the sightless world. He had a stick, and could now, with reasonable proficiency, find his way through his house; the furniture had been rearranged somewhat to make this easier. The easel, which had caused him almost physical pain whenever he had touched it as he walked past, had been put away, along with his paints. ‘Out of sight, out of mind’, Joe had once thought. That bon mot had doubled him up with pain and tears.

~*~

Joe realised one morning that a year had passed, more or less, since he had first seen that horse, which had occupied his thoughts for so long. When Peter, his home-help, visited later that day, Joe asked him if he would drive him out to the paddock. Peter agreed, pleased that, for the first time, Joe had actually asked to be taken somewhere, rather than simply going wherever he was requested or required to go. Peter dropped Joe off at the fence, then left, telling Joe he would be back in about an hour, and not to stray too far from the fence. ‘Use the fence as your bearing, Joe. So long as you’re in contact with the fence, you know where you are, okay? Enjoy yourself, it’s a lovely day.’

Joe could tell it was a lovely day, and felt the first stirrings of annoyance, the first he had really had with anyone, that even Peter, a qualified carer for the blind, occasionally told him things which were perfectly obvious, even to someone without sight. He could feel the unseasonably warm sun on his face and the top of his head; could feel the slight coolish breeze that played with his fringe; could smell the blossom and the pollen which suffused the air. In fact, he had a much better idea what kind of day it was than Peter, probably. He leaned on the fence and tried to imagine the scene in front of him. Most of all, he tried to imagine the horse. After a few minutes, he drifted off into a pleasant daydream.

The horse whickered and snorted gently, bringing him back to the world. He could hear it, could tell it was very near. He could smell it too, a pleasant mix of chewed grass and the musky animal scent of horsehair, wet in the rain and dried in the sun a hundred times. And he could feel it; the horse was so close, he could actually feel its hooves hitting the ground as it walked slowly towards him. Then he could feel its breath on his hands. Tentatively, he put out a hand, and he felt the velvety nose snuffling it, the warm breath rushing over it. He rubbed its nose, moving up the bridge to scratch the patch of brilliant white he remembered so well. Joe felt tears in his eyes; eyes that were now only good for tears, and had been overused in that capacity for much of the last year.

He stood stroking and petting the horse for a while. Minutes past. Gradually he became aware of another smell, above that of the horse. A sweeter, more delicate fragrance; something flowery…then a voice made him snatch his hand away in surprise.

‘Hello. Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you. I didn’t want to interrupt you, you two seem to know each other.’

Joe took a few seconds to recover from the surprise of hearing the woman’s voice. ‘Hello. Yes, we’re old friends. I didn’t know you were there, I thought it was just the horse. You’re…you’re on the horse, aren’t you?’ He realised he had picked up the direction of her voice.

‘Yes. I saw you standing here while I was riding her on the other side of the paddock. Isabel here seemed to want to come over. My name’s Sandy. So, how long have you been blind?’

Her openness with his condition was refreshing, and far from being reluctant to talk about it, as he usually was with people who skirted awkwardly around the issue, he responded in the same manner. ‘About nine months, give-or-take, and it’s been sheer bloody hell. The name’s Joe, by the way.’

‘Well, I’m pleased to meet you Joe.’ He noticed for the first time, now that he was actually listening to the voice, that it had a slight brogue, Scottish he thought, and was delightfully soft, though clear. He liked the voice very much. ‘So what brings you here Joe?’

‘Well, about a year ago I came here, to this very spot, to paint the horse.’

Sandy paused for a few seconds, then asked, ‘would you like to have a ride on her?’

‘I’ve never ridden in my life’ said Joe hastily, his well-honed defences springing up, ‘and you seem to be forgetting my blindness.’

‘No, I’m not forgetting that at all Joe,’ said Sandy, quite harshly, ‘you don’t have to see to ride. Lots of blind people ride. Anyway, I was thinking of staying on her with you. What do you say? Come on Joe, don’t be boring.’

He was about to respond to the insult, but picked up the humour in her voice, and smiled instead. Something in that lilting tone brought trust. ‘Okay,’ he said, and realised that he was excited, a feeling he never expected to experience again.

The next half-hour was one of the most wonderful, exhilarating, liberating experiences of his life. Sandy had put a riding hat on him, then helped him onto Isabel, who had a most placid nature. She started by walking Isabel slowly. Joe could immediately feel the strength beneath the beauty as he sat astride the horse.

Gradually, Sandy took Isabel to a gentle canter, which to Joe felt like a flat-out gallop, up and down the paddock. He held on tightly to Sandy, something he had at first been somewhat reluctant to do, but quickly found to be essential. The wind roared past his ears, Isabel was breathing deeply and regularly, the hooves thudding on the firm ground. As he held onto Sandy, he could smell her hair, fresh and clean, as it blew back softly in his face. He had more sensations in that brief time than he would have thought possible without any contribution from his eyes. And sometime during that period, a vision formed in his head of such clarity, such depth, he thought for a moment he had fallen and was even now deeply unconscious. But the vision persisted, even after Sandy had brought Isabel to a halt and helped Joe down.

As they both stood, patting Isabel and listening to her breathing and snorting, Sandy spoke. ‘Joe, you’re crying, what’s the matter? Are you hurt?’

How could he begin to explain? How could he possibly describe why the tears were flowing from the eyes which would never see again, but were still useful for at least this means of expression. He tried anyway. ‘No, I’m not hurt Sandy. And I’m not in pain, it’s just…’ he struggled to find words that would at least come close to what he was feeling, ‘it’s just…all those times I tried to paint the horse – Isabel – and could never capture the essence of her. And now, now I have no chance of ever doing that on paper, finally I’ve done it anyway. I’ve done it in here.’ He tapped his forehead. ‘In here, I’m looking at the most wonderful, elegant, beautiful painting I ever did. I finally managed to paint the horse. Thank you Sandy.’ The tears began to drip from his chin, and he smiled anyway, the smile of an artist who has finally captured something which only nature knows how to create.

 

 

Copyright © 2000 Simon King
Published on the World Wide Web by "www.storymania.com"