Van Gogh Reborn! - Chapter 33
In the end, he can’t find the answer in anything other than himself.
He won’t be satisfied unless he plucks out his own eyes and stuffed them in it.
The work he displayed confidently was none other than a self-portrait.
He is so proud of his painting skills enough for him to present 766 self-portraits under the name Henry Marceau.
From my point of view, the only way to complete [Marceau’s jewel) is to draw it by his own hands.
It’s not about looking for precious or pretty jewels.
Of course, it is not easy to draw emerald eyes that shine transparently on marble.
However, it would be possible for him, a person who had repeatedly painted himself for a decades.
“what.?”
Henry Marceau looked away.
After contemplating for a while by biting his lips, Henry Marceau finally opened his mouth.
“You’re right.”
He got up from the chair.
He looked up at [Marceau’s jewel] and, as if determined, summoned his staff.
No jewel can be more satisfying than the jewel that’s forged in his hands with blood and sweat.
I think he realized that.
“Get it down.”
The gallery staff were confused.
“What? Sir. What are you talking about?”
“Get it down.”
It would be faster to climb up the ladder and draw, but why is he doing something very cumbersome.
Even if the statue is separated from the pedestal, it is difficult to lift a marble statue of that size with human strength.
The people who were watching suddenly started buzzing about what was going on.
“What’s going on”?
Michelle Platini approached as she noticed an unusual atmosphere.
“El patron, told us to take this down…”
Michelle Platini took out her smartphone.
“Yes. Marceau Gallery. Please send us the forklift. Yes, the one from last time.”
Reporters rushed while hearing her words.
Henry Marceau, Michelle Platini, and I were also asked questions.
“What’s going on”?
“What’s the reason for taking down the statue?”
“Aren’t you going to display [Marceau’s jewel]?”
“Is it because it’s incomplete?”
“Master Hun…What did you mean by what you said to Henry Marceau?”
In the midst of the chaos, visitors also whispered.
“What? What’s happening?”
“Is there a problem?”
“I think Henry was talking about something with Ko Hun.”
“Yes. It seemed like Ko Hun was giving some advice”
“Why are you holding an exhibition when you haven’t even finished it? Think twice before you act.”
“The agony until the completion of the work. Then to the process of disposal. Can’t you be satisfied.? It’s outrageous. Is this really the best of Henry Marceau?”
There are many reactions and different languages: people trying to understand how things are going, people who complain, people who are not sane, etc.
“What? What’s wrong with him?”
Kim Jiwoo tilted his head.
“He found the answer.”
“What did you say?”
I think Kim Jiwoo didn’t understand since we talked in French.
“I said you have the jewel within you.”
“Huh?”
Kim Ji-woo raised one eyebrow as if he couldn’t understand.
He will know when Henry Marceau lifts the brush, so I don’t want to lesson the joy of that time by letting him know in advance.
⏩⏩⏩⏩
Gallery staff asked for understanding from the visitors.
A small machine came in, and it looked a little different from a car.
It’s probably like a special vehicle that can carry heavy objects.
With everyone’s attention focused.
[Marceau’s jewel) was separated from the pedestal.
When the pedestal and the height of the statue are combined, it looks about 2.8m to 3m, so the volume and weight are burdensome to move.
It seems to have been created to separate the pedestal and the statue for a movement from the beginning.
Workers put Marceau’s jewel next to the pedestal.
Now all that is left is the brushwork of Henry Marceau.
The moment he paints his eyes, Marceau’s jewels will come to life.
“what? What?”
“I guess he has decided.”
“Oh my god. What’s gonna happen?”
Everyone seems nervous.
Kim Jiwoo also couldn’t hide his nervousness and tapped his feet.
Everyone watches Henry Marceau as he walks in front of the pedestal.
Looking at the golden marble statue, he climbed onto the pedestal and took a pose.
What….What is he doing?
I couldn’t understand the strange behavior, so I looked around and everyone else also seemed to be stunned.
The workers who unloaded [Marceau’s jewel], gallery staff, and curator Michelle Platini looked at him blankly without blinking.
In the midst of silence.
Henry Marceau opened his mouth.
“The agony of creativity! Frustration! After despair and wandering, I realized that I, myself was the Marceau’s Jewel!”
Everyone opened their eyes wide in surprise.
What kind of nonsense is he spouting.
“Be hold ! You people are seeing the process of me achieving a holy stage with your own eyes!”
I had no idea what he was saying.
I wondered if there was a new form of art that I don’t know about.
So I turned my head towards Kim Jiwoo, who also kept his eyes wide open as if they would pop out any second.
After seeing Henry Marceau for a while, he murmured.
“What kind of bullshit is this.?”
Kim Jiwoo, who has studied about various arts and liberal arts, doesn’t seem to understand what he was doing.
Henry Marceau threw away his work.
How can a Artist do such a thing.
Suddenly someone clapped their hands.
Clap, clap, clap, clap.
“It is a Holy work.”
“I guess he was trying to express the anguish. I never imagined that.”
What kind of situation is this?
People are applauding for the nonsense of a crazy man.
“No. It’s not necessarily a contemporary art. It may mean that an artist who struggles to make a work has made himself an art.”
There are more than one or two such crazy people.
I don’t know anything about contemporary art, but I have a fundamental question as to whether this an art that can be understood and applauded.
The bigger problem is that Henry Marceau on the pedestal, who smiled as if he was satisfied.
I stepped forward.
“Come down now!”
Henry Marceau did not budge.
This is an insult not only to Art, but also to the work for which he gave his all.
It is a mockery of the visitors who have come a long way for him.
It is an act of deceiving himself, who has been training for decades.
“What kind of nonsense is this.!”
I couldn’t control my anger.
When looked at him, with eyes filled with anger, that guy opened his mouth.
“As you said, The jewel of the Marceau family is me. There is no need for a duplicate.”
“Stop spouting nonsense and come down now! Draw! Did you forget the aesthetics you have been pursuing all this time? Communicate to audience with your work not with this kind of nonsense.?”
“There’s no work that’s better than ME”.
It is the job of a philosopher to make people think about an idea with words.
An artist is a being who has to conceive an idea and has to expresses it with his work.
When I moved my feet to pull that crazy guy who has gone rogue, someone caught me from behind.
“ Grandpa…!?”
“That’s enough.”
“There is no point in arguing with a lazy guy who has given up communicating with his work.”
It was only after listening to Grandpa that I could understand what he and Aunt Mirae were worried about.
It’s wrong.
What Henry Marceau is doing now cannot be said to be art.
Expressing the emotions boiling in the heart and the ideas that are fiercely cultivated in the head according to the individual’s aesthetics is ART.
The essence of art is in when others recognize it as art.
A work can’t be called Art, when it is created by an artist, it becomes an Art, when it is recognized by the audience who deeply sympathizes with it.
“What’s going on”?
“Isn’t that Ko Hun? He is so cute.”
“He looks angry”.
“He doesn’t seems to like Henry’s work?”
What I can’t forgive is…
He, who polished himself and painted such a beautiful paintings, turned his back on his work just because he didn’t want to admit his limitations.
“…You’re scared, aren’t you”?
Henry Marceau wriggled his eyebrows at my words.
“Because you think you can’t complete it like this. You want to run away with ridiculous crappy sh*t, right?”
“Hun, who taught you to use such bad words”?
My grandfather opened his eyes wide as if he was surprised.
Since I got angry I spoke in my old way without realizing it.
I turned my head and politely questioned him again.
“Aren’t you ashamed?” What you really have to be ashamed of is not that you didn’t complete that statue, it’s that you are deceiving yourself.”
“ What did you say ‘I am the jewel of the Marceau family. What’s the point of creating a duplicate sculpture?’”
“There is. You really understand who you are, when you try to express yourself with your work.”
“Yeah. I realized that. But there is no duplicates that can completely express me other than myself.”
“Stop talking nonsense! You have no choice but to make what you wanted to make with your own hands.!”
Henry Marceau narrowed his eyes and looked down at me.
“What do you know?”
“I know. I know just by looking at your self-portraits in that room. How much you love yourself. I know how much effort you have put into expressing that. But if you continue with this nonsense, it will only be a disgrace to all those efforts.”
My words didn’t reach his ears.
My eyes lit up with anger.
It’s useless to speak with words to a stubborn man.
“Stand…. Just stand there for the rest of your life? I will complete your work.”
“What?”
I pulled a chair, placed it in front of [Marceau’s jewel).
“Hun, what are you doing?”
Grandpa tried stopped me, but I felt sorry for the work so I couldn’t leave it as a mess like this.
I picked up the brush that was on the workbench and squeezed the paint he used to find the color of the jewelry.
“Stop!”
The security guard tried to approach, but Michelle Platini stopped him.
Rather, she nodded looking at me as if asking me to do whatever I wanted.
Henry Marceau doesn’t seem to have any intention of coming down.
“Come down and Draw. Who else can draw it if it’s not you?”
“As long as I’m here, that statue is a worthless garbage.”
“….Are you going to throw it away?”
“Yeah. It’s just a piece of stone.”
I climbed up on the chair.
“What is Ko Hun going to do?”
“No way…”
“Don’t we have to stop him?”
“The curator itself standing still”.
Emerald eyes full of longing and sadness.
“Hun!”
When I put a brush on the statue, the gallery was filled with screams.
I began to draw the eyes on [Marceau’s jewel] without caring about the screams and the shouts of Grandpa.
“What are you doing, Hun?”
I don’t want him to become a loser like me and regret his life.
I gave up on Art and life because I didn’t have Wealth, health and skills.
He has everything.
If he dropped his brush now he will never be able pick it up.
I know the pain of not being able to pick up the brush.
I can’t allow a youngster, who grew up by looking at my Art to feel the same pain.
⏩⏩⏩⏩
Henry Marceau came down from the pedestal.
He turned his eyes and saw the eyes I drew on [Marceau’s jewel] and grinded his teeth.
“What did you do?”
“Why? Didn’t you say it was useless? Now that it was drawn by someone else did it suddenly become precious?”
There’s no word.
After staring for a long time, he took the brush from me and headed for the statue’s eyes.
He hesitated a few times.
“Zut”.
(Damn it)
He dropped the brush.
I caught the brush before it could fall on the ground.
The problem seems to be this person’s will.
“Erase the one I drew and draw it with your own hands. No one can draw your eyes better than you. You’ve drawn it thousands of times.”
Only Henry Marceau can complete [Marceau’s Jewel].
“It’s…”.
His voice was shaking so much that I couldn’t hear what you were saying.
“What did you say?”
“You drew it well!”
“You drew it well….you little b*stard!”
Henry Marceau turned towards me, grabbed me by the collar and lifted me up.
I wobbled in the mid-air as if I would fall any second.
I looked at Henry Marceau in his eyes.
It seemed like he still didn’t wake up.
I grabbed his collar and hit his face with my head with all my might.
Trivia
Idea:
Derived from the Greek word idein, metaphysics claimed by Plato. Plato argued that the idea was the essence of all things, and defined matter as the shadow of the idea.
