Alaric in Mirabeau part 1: Salli & Paolo
In The Doom that Came to
Amber
Travelling Hopefully
Does Alaric tell anyone other than his mother that he’s going to Mirabeau?
No. He drew the original sketch of the barn that was the closest
we judged we could get to Mirabeau via Trump. He will
sketch it and travel through it carrying an ordinary sword from the armoury
room at Amber, his best brushes; a portfolio of art papers and his tenor viol.
(The meeting with the Cthulhu gribbly was unsettling
so I would think that he would be looking for a silver sword similar to Aubek but baned against gribblies!) He will leave his five trumps hidden in the
barn and will start walking towards Mirabeau and,
using Pattern, find some currency and hitch his way into the City. He is
travelling as Richard Alars and is an itinerant
painter trying to extend his painting skills in the City of artists.
He has an uneventful trip. [BTW, the ‘barn’ is in fact a tower
IIRC from Aylwin and Morwaith’s
trip.]
When he gets there he will take a studio room somewhere suitably
bohemian and will spend his time lurking about the places where art is
exhibited in Mirabeau – other than the Cathedral.
Everywhere in Mirabeau is bohemian and
art is exhibited all over the place. Alaric finds himself a place much as you
describe with little trouble.
He will go back to basic sketching techniques and of places not
people. He will do nothing showy and will be dressed in a slightly puritan
manner [eg not his usual showy gitness]
but will still wear a black wig and will wear whatever passes for the norm for
young artists in Mirabeau.
Since so many people aspire to being artists, there’s no
particular ‘look’. These people are not ‘different’, they are the norm. Of
course, not all of them have the talent. Since the very highest aspiration is
to be an Iconer [the priesthood], a few do dress in
quasi-clerical garb but I suspect that Alaric doesn’t want to do that.
Alaric will firstly observe and then try to mix with local wannabe
artists and try to keep a reasonably low profile.
On your third day in the town, you find yourself painting a rural
scene from just outside the
His name is Paolo Scipbas [pronounced ‘shibbas’]. Paolo reckons Richard has genuine talent [never
:-) ] and tells you that you might benefit from a good
teacher.
Over the next few days, Alaric talks to Paolo about a number of
subjects. Mostly about style in art and finding an individual style, about his
personal desires, also about the difference between photographic reproduction [so to speak] and artistic interpretation of a
scene – the growth of abstract interpretations of people and landscapes.
“That’s exactly what Salli says.” He
breathes excitedly (Salli Davador
is the leader of his ‘school’). “She’s trying to get at the essence of the
subject rather than merely the reproduction of its image.”
Paolo doesn’t really want to be an Iconer,
the lifestyle doesn’t appeal. He wants recognition as an artist because that’s
what he’s been raised to aspire to, but he’ll be happy as a noble dilettante.
Using all of his former skills as an art patron, Alaric encourages
Paulo to explore art to find his personal style. Do something really radical
like introduce him to Matisse [simple but effective abstracts] and start to
work up to Nayda’s portrait in a pure Van Eyke style and start sketching a Baconesque
impression of the same portrait.
Paolo is awe-struck! “I thought you were just beginning.” he
gasps. “This is so close to what Salli’s been
teaching us. You two have to talk to each other.”
Salli Davidor
and the
That evening, Paolo takes Richard to meet the rest of his group of
half-a-dozen artists who have formed what they think of as a new school. Paolo
heroine worships the group’s leader; a young lady called Salli
Davador who affects clerical dress. You can see Salli has a lot of talent and it becomes clear that she’s
using the rest of the school to raise her own profile in the hope of being
noticed by the Iconers.
Salli’s above
average height, blond, blue-eyed. She’s not skinny but certainly isn’t fat. Likes to dress in
flowing robes, a la priestesses of the Goddess, but takes care to ensure there’s enough subtle differences for people to tell right
out she’s not ordained. Unusually among artists, she takes care not to be seen
in public with paint staining her clothes. She oozes an intellectual sensuality
but is celibate as far as you know. [You gather the priesthood practises
celibacy, too.] You think her sublimated sexual energy helps power her
creativity
Paolo is not bad, the best of the rest of the group. The tragedy
of Mirabeau is that the mean artistic ability is so
high that a gifted artist elsewhere is only so-so here. You reckon Paolo will
probably make it as an artist and join the nobility, as long as he escapes from
Salli. Her style is excellent for her but he needs
his own. Salli is extraordinarily gifted but whether
she can draw trump [the qualification for Iconer] is
another question. The rest of the group probably won’t cut the mustard as
professional artists.
One peripheral member of the group, Waldo Yahn,
specialises in doing weird collages out of ordinary everyday materials, even
horse dung. What he comes up with is original but not exactly suitable for
display in enclosed spaces. ;-).
This would be the sort of Turner prize winning shit eh! Any signs of picked sheep’s heads a la Damien Hurst?
Waldo uses a lot of things apart from dung, old sacks, broken
utensils of various materials, cobbles, etc. No rotting carcasses; but Trudi Hamnest does – in a small
way, just beetles and small vermin, so far. :-)
Alaric will ask the group to recommend the most interesting places
to view art – and ask if there are large private collections as well.
Paolo tells you there’s collections all
over the place. Institutions and noblemen collect other people’s work. Some
such collections are entirely private but others can be viewed. However, Salli affirms and Paolo agrees that the best work is all
religious and the Cathedral has to be the
Alaric will try to get the Group to take him around the Cathedral
and talk him through the works on display [always in terms of style] and he is
looking to spot any of his Trumps or those of his relatives.
When you voice an interest, Salli
magisterially announces the entire group should immediately visit the Cathedral
for inspiration. The morning service will be over so you should be safe.
A Visit to the Cathedral
Salli takes it upon herself to guide
you through the Cathedral. She points out the more avant-garde works and a
couple of Timon’s monochromes are mentioned but Dworkin-style representational icons aren’t her cup of tea.
Alaric will talk a lot to Salli about
her ambitions [in terms of art] and try and work out how she will be noticed
and what steps she will go through to learn to draw trumps.
She passionately wants to be an Iconer,
whether to serve her goddess or for less altruistic reasons, you can’t say. She
genuinely wants to impart some of her ability in the group but she’s well aware
that it helps her to be noticed.
She explores her own style and imagination. She finds her weirder
stuff the most fascinating and she intends to do more of it when she no longer
has to worry how it will be taken by the public – when she’s an established
name. She hints that she’s experimented with painting while under the influence
of hallucinogens.
“Faith is the key!” she says, “If you pay attention to detail and
believe in your art, it comes. When you’ve made your first icon, the goddess
will know and you’ll get the summons.”
“Now this is one of my favourites.” She pauses in front of a
painting 3’ x 2’. You can feel the trump quality radiating from it. It depicts
a rural scene where the ground in the foreground follows a concave to become
the walls of a canyon some miles away and keeps curving. It looks like part of
the inside of a sphere or cylinder. Peasants are working in the fields almost
upside down in the distance. “This guy’s dead now, but what an imagination.”
She turns to you emphatically. “And what I’m going to do will blow the old
order away.”
“Who was the artist and when and how did he die?”
“Adam Kevence? Oh, he died some time
ago. A heart attack at his easel, I think. He was old.”
Has Alaric ever seen similar work or visited that shadow?
You tell me! There’s a variety of ways such a place could exist.
I have travelled the
Sounds like Alaric’s not been there, then.
Otherwise, you could nail it precisely.
Is it so powerful that Alaric could make contact with the place it
depicts?
It feels like a trump to you so quite likely – if it weren’t for
the trump barrier around Mirabeau, of course.
Religious in subject or religious because they are Trump cards?
You find this a very difficult question to articulate. Mirabeau doesn’t use the word ‘trump’. Their term for
religious painting is ‘icon’. From what you see in the cathedral, it’s the
trump quality that makes an icon but the subject is usually something connected
with the Goddess when an iconer paints it. Those
icons that don’t appear to have some direct connection with scripture are
regarded as revealing some facet of the Goddess previously unknown and
therefore are highly prized.
When she says the name ‘Mira’, you feel a strange feeling pass
over, like a momentary sense of being watched.
Paolo and Salli
compared in terms of Style
Most of Salli’s work is straight
impressionist but some of her most successful works are very strange indeed
with objects and space performing in ways considered impossible under most
systems of physics. Paolo is also impressionistic and that sort of style will
suit him. He’s certain to stumble across it eventually, mainly by rejecting Salli’s more outré stuff.
[Strange as in Dali strange?]
[That strange and sometimes
stranger.]
That’s cool but not altogether in Alaric’s taste. He’d like to
introduce her to Francis Bacon’s style sometime.
Salli reckons it’s a good start but
it doesn’t go far enough. She looks at your Baconesque
portrait of Nayda and does her own version. What she
produces is heart stopping. Her version of Nayda is
torn, twisted, deformed and rotting; clearly dead for some time, but the eyes
are vibrantly alive. Salli herself doesn’t like it
but she says she has tried to capture the ‘essence’ only hinted at in your
picture.
Alaric says, “It is just a matter of thinking about art – not just
doing – I haven’t of late been doing much painting, but rather more thinking
about it. Maybe I should start a career in art criticism instead” – and he
smiles tightly.
Paolo, a sensitive soul, is hurt and paints nothing for a couple
of days, brooding.
If Alaric notices this he will say to Paolo “stop taking me so
literally Paolo. I was casting myself as the art critic not you. I expect to be
giving lectures on your work in a few years time – and, I hope you might one
day allow me to commission a work from you? Please come and drink some wine
with me this afternoon and we can start some work in the evening.”
Paolo goes drinking with you and his spirits seem to lift a
little. He shows you a selection of Salli’s most
recent work, such as she still possesses. “A lot of her stuff goes very
quickly, she’ll probably be nobility within a year.”
A couple of items are fairly straight but she doesn’t dwell on
them. She quickly moves on to the weird stuff. A lot of it ostensibly depicts
scenes from scripture. As you don’t know scripture, it means little to you. You
notice that the Goddess is depicted in various ways, as if Salli’s
groping for some hidden quality. Salli tells you that
she knows she’s missing something vital with these. When she gets it, and she
thinks she’s close, she’ll know she’ll have made it and the summons will come.
Two of her works depict the Goddess outside of scripture, these
make you stop for a moment. One shows the Goddess as a chair sat on by a
hideously misshapen dwarf. Another shows the Goddess reclining on a stone
statue of a purple reptilian creature. You think you’ve seen that one somewhere
before.
Hmmm – that would be Mira with Great Grandfather Dworkin then – which explains a lot. And the other might be
Mira in the Courts of Chaos perhaps. Alaric logs that one Steve.
Fine, but since when has Alaric seen a picture of anyone in the CoC? He’s sure he’s seen the woman lying on a griffin
statue before, he just can’t think where. Salli’s
painting looks chaotic but that doesn’t mean that what it’s of; her Mirabeau landscapes look the same. Anyway, Alaric wouldn’t
know what the CoC looks like; he’s never been there.
Yes, he hasn’t been to the CoC. Fair
enough. Is she the woman depicted in any of the Trumps that Morwaith
relieved me of?
Ah! Now there’s a thought. How does this sound:
‘#10 A gawky adolescent is laughing as she rides the purple reptile, bareback’?
Salli’s picture shows the creature as
a statue, the backdrop is a roman temple rather than a rock face, the ‘girl’ is
a mature woman with some stylistic features indicating the Goddess and she’s
not laughing but rather languid. However, the poses are very similar indeed.
In the trump scene, the girl throws her arm out and leans far
back, rodeo style, her feet almost level with the
creature’s neck. In Salli’s picture, the woman
reclines in a drowse of ennui, one hand held to the painter and her feet lie together this side of the statue’s head. The colouring
is also similar for both dress and creature.
Somewhere in Alaric’s mind, a bell is rung and a bulb lights.
“This one just came to me; I don’t know why, I was trying for
something else. The temple and statue lie outside the city, not far from here.”
Salli seems troubled. “I’m not sure it’s good.” You
can tell she’s not talking about the quality of the picture but of the subject.
You suspect it’s not from scripture.
Those icons that don’t appear to have some direct connection with
scripture are regarded as revealing some facet of the Goddess previously
unknown and therefore are highly prized.
Are these kept somewhere for public viewing? Alaric is trying to
think where his Trumps might be if they are not on public display in the
Cathedral. Yes, he is that vain.
He saw a couple in the cathedral; one quite accessible, the second
high up. I assume you made no attempt to draw attention to them in case Salli noticed your style.
Alaric says guardedly “I would I had your skill and certainty Salli. I feel certain that my skills will find me in the
ranks of the nobility as a painter – and that would satisfy me.” He is trying
to guard his thoughts as he feels that he is being watched. And I really don’t
want to talk about faith inside her Cathedral.
She lets her hands fall as she turns to the next work. “You’ll get
there! Probably when you’ve stopped worrying about it.
The Goddess is with you, I just know it. She watches over us all.”
“But, it all seems so simple Salli. Are
there ranks of disappointed artists in Mirabeau who
never quite made the grade? I will join them now!”
“Of course there’s disappointed artists, Richard. Most people are.”
She looks at you strangely, as if you should know this. “Just be grateful that
we won’t be among them.”
“How does an artist know that she/he has received the summons?”
“Silly! The priests come knocking, of course. The Goddess tells
them where to find us. Honestly, Richard, how can anyone be so naive? You must
take some notice of the real world. We can’t live in our pictures or we go
stale.”
After Leaving the Cathedral
Isn’t Salli concerned that painting
whilst under the influence isn’t really producing her own work – after all it
takes maturity for the psyche to truly express itself in any form of artistic
expression.
“Maturity?” She gives you an amused look
of the ‘pot & kettle’ variety. [This conversation takes place on leaving
the cathedral btw]. “They free the mind from the restraints of mere mundane
experience. They let me envision – new worlds! But it all remains my own work.”
She throws you a knowing look. “Haven’t you ever painted while drunk?”
What drugs has she been taking and what are the benefits – and is this
accepted practice by the Iconers.
“That’s none of your business!” She retorts with a scowl.
What is she planning to do artistically? And how many drugs to
achieve it?
Salli seems offended by your
questioning, [remember she only hinted at drug use]. She avoids you until the
church service on Godsday.
If Salli doesn’t want to eat with him he
will find somewhere to eat – and eat well.
You’ve already eaten and are well into some drinking when you make
your faux pas. The mood is broken and she leaves for her garret studio.
After Salli leaves
Alaric takes a short walk in the cool night air to help settle his
unsettled thoughts. Then goes home and works on Nayda’s
portrait. If it is going well he will work on it all night. If not he’ll pack
it in around
You work on Nayda’s picture but Salli’s imagery keeps coming back to haunt you. You find
yourself searching for the right background. Something with stars, perhaps;
wisps of vapour, clouds, ethereal things with ghostly eyes, shapeless dark
forms... Suddenly you shudder, finding the painting repulsive. Disturbed, you
turn in to bed.
Alaric is very keen to try a very short free association drawing
test to see if can work as a technique in Mirabeau.
He will try it briefly before he goes to bed. If he should have any sense that
it is/would draw attention to himself then he will
immediately stop.
You need some sort of focus on which to base your drawing. The
first time, you were thinking of the situation at Lyon Abbey. This time, Nayda and the painting have disturbed you so you can’t
think of much else. You try to draw something relating to Nayda
but practically the first line on the paper makes you want to tear it up and
throw it across the room in fear and loathing. You turn in and decide to try
another time.
As you drift off, you realise what’s wrong with your picture – Yours
shows Nayda’s brown eyes as you saw them in the
chapter house; Salli’s depicted the eyes you saw when
Nayda was in her coma.
Eeeerk! FAR too much like looking
into Nayda’s eyes when she was possessed.
Yes – perhaps with more detail. You realise that if you painted
eyes like Nayda had while unconscious. The portrait
would look like an empty mask suspended in space...
Re Nayda’s portrait – it might also be
that someone is messing with his head and causing him to dwell on Nayda more than is necessary or strictly healthy.
He’s not sensed anything, but it’s a possibility.
On the other hand there may be real problems in Begma.
There undoubtedly are real problems in Begma
but how could that affect his painting in Mirabeau? –
trump barrier, remember?
His desire to remove himself from Court and politics is still much
stronger than his desire to rescue his former portrait subject but he is
intellectually engaged by the potential for trouble around Nayda.
However, it is becoming clear to him that this issue is clouding his
concentration on painting and that he must block it whilst he is painting. He
is thinking very clearly that Mira should get out of his head!
[Mmm! Reading what I wrote, I don’t
think I was very clear.] Alaric was apparently trying to paint Nayda as she was in the chapter house but clearly his view
of her at the time of her later coma was intruding. Salli
seems to have picked up on these intrusions from Alaric’s picture and brought
them out wholesale in her own effort.
Alaric knows it’s possible that something in what he subconsciously
knows or sensed about Nayda last time they met could
be influencing Begma now and could turn up in his
painting, having been imported within his mind. (Though the
influence would be very ephemeral.) However, no new development
in Begma could be sensed in Mirabeau
if it was not implicit in what Alaric knew prior to crossing the Trump barrier.
Hopefully Alaric will bear the above point in mind. Salli sensed from a painting what he had failed to grasp.
A New Day
You set to after rising the next day. Just 30-minute’s work and
you step back to see what feels like a working trump. Your hackles rise as you
see exactly what you expected, an empty mask suspended in some sort of
nightmare spacescape. You drop your palette in shock;
you even drew a tentacle across one corner without realising it last night.
Consider the painting – see if it’s cold. If it’s not, turn it to
the wall and go away from it!
It’s a working trump as far as you can tell. The only way to be
sure would be to use it and of course that can’t happen inside Mirabeau. Don’t let Salli see it
or she’ll know it as an Icon. It’s still not complete, though. It needs
finishing and, of course, sealing in some sort of varnish.
Or destroying; Alaric does not want THIS left anywhere that it
could be used to cause harm to people or whole shadows.
Well that’s up to him, really. For the moment he throws a sheet
over it and tries to avoid thinking about it.
His trumps are in Van Eyke’s style [15th
century
I’m not referring to the ‘school’ of painting you’re currently
employing. I mean your personal style. A craftsman may use different tools but
he still has the same fingerprints. Picasso changed his own style several times
but a Picasso looks like a Picasso. Do you see what I mean? Salli
has impressed you with her perception, you’re sure she’d notice the similarity
of the two trumps to the stuff you’ve shown her.
If they go to Church, Alaric will go with them BUT only so long as
there is an option NOT to take Communion.
There is no such option if you attend a service. Religion is a
closed shop in Mirabeau and if you persist in not
attending a service for more than a few days, your new friends will start
looking at you askance.
OK Alaric will go to a service with them sometime soon.
It’ll be in a couple of day’s time in a local church rather than
the cathedral.
The Church Service, Miraday
When the time comes, everyone gathers in the nearest sludgehouse. Salli’s a little
cold but at least she speaks to you. Alaric behaves perfectly normally towards
her – and whispers that he owes her a drink and a canvas competition.
“We’ll see!” she whispers and starts paying a lot of attention to
Waldo.
Paolo whispers urgently that maybe he thinks he knows what you
meant and he’d like you to look at something he’s done since the cathedral
visit.
Alaric whispers back, “I am intrigued and we will speak about it
more after Church” and smiles. Then the bells toll calling the faithful and you
all cross the street to the church.
Are there icons on display in this Church?
Of course, not as many and the overall standard isn’t as good but
there’s quite a few excellent works. You don’t know the responses but you can
mime.
Throughout the service Alaric looks at the subjects depicted in
the stained glass and is looking for evidence of Mira’s earlier life and
particularly images of Dworkin or Oberon or any
possible family resemblances.
The icons portray scripture, which relates entirely to Mirabeau and how Mira came forth and rescued the place from
the Philistine god that once held sway, the god just might be Oberon, then again, it might not. There’s nothing about what Mira
was before and you see no dwarf.
When everyone gets on their knees to pray, [looking up at the
stained glass and the icons], what are you thinking?
Alaric casts his eyes up at the stained glass windows and is
comparing their colour and lustre to other Cathedrals/big places of worship
that he has been in over the years he will be excluding any Unicorn Churches he
has been in. He is very clearly thinking that this is one of the best chances
he has had for a very long time to paint, and he is going to make the most of
it to practice and learn more. Amen!
As the ‘amens’ ripple through the
congregation, you hear the words, “You will, you will!” pass tenuously through
your mind. Did you imagine them?
No, and he will think back “commission a work from me Mira – give
me back those which were taken from me in exchange.” Amen!
No, it’s gone, though there might have been a titter of amusement.
And then it’s time for communion. Are you going?
Out of preference no. He probably does his best to
avoid Unicorn Communion as well. However nothing looks so blindingly obvious as
someone who doesn’t go up to take Communion, especially as my crisis of faith
has already been commented on by Salli. I will bring
Pattern to mind and hold it as a defence against magical attack during
Communion. [Damn I can’t remember if its Body or Blood
first!] If it’s a shared Communion cup he will pretend to drink from it. If
they are individual he’ll just have to down it. He will hold the host in his
mouth and not swallow it but having returned to his seat will sneeze and get
rid of it into a handkerchief. If its host than blood then they will both get
downed with only Pattern as his defence because Alaric does really not believe
in religion stuff.
So he doesn’t want to but he’ll go through the motions for
appearance sake? OK!
Salli notices your reluctance and
urges you on rather kindly, actually. “She’s within you, watching you! I can
feel it!” she murmurs, apparently in reassurance.
In this case, the body [actually a crumb of digestive biscuit] is
washed down by the blood [a very nice vintage indeed and not at all watered]. Salli is first in the group and you notice she rises at the
far end of the line and is watching you. Alaric concentrates hard on the image
of the Pattern before him and swallows.
[Of course, if you don’t believe, why the Pattern? What is there
to protect yourself from? :-]
A strange feeling suffuses through you. You feel calm, surrounded
by an intense beauty as if you’re senses were newly gained. You’ve been blind
until now! Somewhere, from far away, a voice whispers in your head, “What’s
mine is mine and here my power is supreme – Put away your feeble ‘Pattern’.
What have you to offer son of Amber? Show me your full
potential and we’ll talk.”
Alaric thinks back “I have much to offer you Aunt. What can you
offer me in return – and compromise me no longer”
No. That’s it. The voice and feeling pass but you retain the
calmness. Salli’s voice penetrates your reverie, “I
knew it would happen,” she gushes joyfully, “he’s heard the Goddess!” She
sounds really happy for you.
Alaric turns towards her and says “Not here Salli.
Not now. Keep your hopes to yourself.” Alaric is neither pleased nor amused.
Paolo’s hand falls on your shoulder. “Richard, there’s others
waiting.”
Alaric shrugs off Paolo’s hand.
“Leave him, Paolo! He’s had an emotional experience but he’ll be
alright when he’s had some time to think.”
Alaric nods and goes back to the body of the Church with Paolo.
The service finishes with some really good songs. What do you do
after?
Paolo wanted to talk to Alaric about something important. When
they are both outside of the Church Alaric takes Paolo by the right arm/elbow
and says “You had something to talk to me about Paolo. Can we do that now?”
“Er, well I’m busy right now. I’ve still
got to finish that painting I was telling you about and then tonight I’m seeing
this girl... How about tomorrow afternoon?”
After the Service, that Evening – Multidimensional
Musings and a Picture of Mira
Since Paolo declines, Alaric will leave the company of the
gathered masses swiftly and return to his room and deface and or destroy his
portrait of Nayda – right down to burning it. He just
doesn’t want it activated. Frankly he doesn’t want to be in the same Shadow as
it.
You put it in the grate and it burns wonderfully. You feel a great
weight lift from your shoulders, to be replaced with some sort of lassitude.
You feel drowsy though not exactly tired.
He will then spent the next few hours in
meditation.
He does so though he nods off once or twice. What is it that he
wants to paint?
He will start to do some free association drawings focussing on
Mira. He is not interested in food or drink at present and does not wish to be
disturbed.
Well it’s early evening when you start playing with your free
association drawing. You look at the frighteningly empty sheet of paper. You
draw a child’s woman figure with a halo to represent the Goddess and start doodling an abstract design around her. Various thoughts
pass through your mind. “What do I want to paint?”…”Commission a work from me
Mira!”…”What have you to offer, son of Amber?”…”I’m going to paint something so
challenging that it will shut her up for a year and a day.”…”Show me your full potential and we’ll talk.”
After staring for half-an-hour
with these thoughts going round inside your head. You glance down at the paper
before tossing it away in disgust. It’s just a mess of lines and squiggles, not
even very aesthetic.
The last rays of sunlight lance through your window and for a
second catch the paper, creating an optical illusion. Your doodle suddenly
looks like some sort of figure. You recall being made to draw polyhedra as an exercise. Your mother even made you
practise drawing 4-dimensional polyhedra [but then
she always went too far]. For a second, your doodle looked something like one
of those, a 2-dimensional representation of a-4 dimensional object.
That’s interesting – Alaric works quickly to catch that moment. He
retrieves the paper and examines it more closely. It would be kind of like
computer modelling on Golter would it not?
You know more about Golter; you tell me!
:-)
Hi tech world – the sort of world where IT is a tool for good
artists and brilliant imaginations – Virtual reality modelling. There’s a
simple VR model of the 1830 Warehouse at the Museum for example.
Now I see what you mean. It would allow 3D representations of 4D
but would still look confusing. It’d undoubtedly be magnitudes better than
using pencil & paper but maths would still be your best bet for really
getting an understanding of the inter-relations. 3D VR of 4D would, OTOH, give
you a very good idea of how something like that looked.
Develop the figure, bring it out in a broader sense and draw it
was if it were centring the Universe. Then using shading, develop the space
within. Re-sketch the whole image from a new perspective, like a Dali.
Re-sketch the image taken in abstract from the first sketch. Re-sketch for a
third time using a subtle suggestion of Pattern to ground the work with the
reverse reflected in the ceiling. Re-sketch the figure from first principles
but by removing all light sources concentrating on Psyche only.
These sketches take you several hours; you stop only to light a
lamp and refuel it when it runs out. [Experimenting with the light off proves
too tricky; perhaps Vialle could help you?] You
reckon yourself hampered by your artistic inclination to create understandable
pictures. You reflect that what you’re doing is best handled by abstract
mathematics rather than 2D visualisation, but you persevere.
It’s late when you disentangle enough of it to show that your
original sketch might have been an attempt at a representation of two 4D
spaces, within each other. When you look closely, it seems both contain the
other entirely, interpenetrating at all points and levels.
Alaric hopes that his current skill level can be achieved if he
does not allow himself to be distracted from mundane things [of course he could
be deluding himself] and if he can take Trump/Icon further.
When you concentrate on them separately, you try to put in details
of the larger of the two and find yourself sketching meaningless irregular shapes.
After another hour of rubbing-out, shading and messing about, what you have
looks suspiciously like some of the things in Nayda’s
portrait, eyes and all.
Repulsed, you push the sketches away in loathing but the
perspective leant by distance suddenly gives you another flash of insight. The
irregular splodges aren’t things, they’re continents. It’s a sort of map! The ‘eyes’
must be towns.
Re-sketch for a fifth time with the perspective taken from within
the figure and looking out towards the room and then within the artist. Not a
portrait of the artist – but a reflection of the artist within. Distort this to
illustrate the determination of the artist and his masculinity [sublimated
anger and indecision, frustration and irritation; pain and concern] and finally
the intense feeling that coursed through him in the Cathedral.
This leads you to the smaller of the two spaces. This one’s
trickier, you perceive it’s more intimately linked to the Goddess figure, she’s
at the absolute centre and you force yourself to see things from what you think
is her point of view. You find yourself sketching something quite different; it’s
an inner space, internal to something and not like the ‘map’, which is
essentially flat.
By the time you’ve refilled the lamp again, it’s the early hours
of the morning and you realise that disentangling the geometry to get at the
subject requires cool thought rather than emotional energy. You’re not exactly
tired but you are mentally strained. Instead of wrestling with multidimensional
geometry, you decide to try painting a visual impression of the smaller,
internal space.
Alaric works to the limit of his endurance. I’m not sure how long
that is Steve. He doesn’t eat or drink and does not wish to be interrupted.
His eyes are very tired by the time the sun rises, but the fresh
rays of dawn reflecting off the roof opposite let him see his creation. It’s
some sort of glorious cavern panoplied in rich green
and purple. You’ve painted half a throne and from the point of view of the
artist, you’re sitting on it. The one thing that frustrates you is that your
own skill can’t match what your mind’s eye ‘sees’. It’s far from complete but
your mind feels too stretched to concentrate and you collapse into bed
exhausted.
Does Alaric dream? He is thinking of solutions to his painting.
What depth is there to the painting – he is thinking in terms of layers of
reality.
You may dream but they’re the usual ephemeral things that flee
upon waking. You were very tired and slept like the proverbial piece of tree.
:-)