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Show 135 "I'm okay," Sean kept saying. "Sean's okay," Todd said. "I pulled him from the water." Hunt stopped being a Realist. It had too much weight. "I tried," he said to Leah. "I thought I could be. I thought I should. It seemed ..." Leah kissed Hunt's creased, bony face. "Your mustache is off center," she said. That night, she knew, she'd have him under her quilt. "Still, it was better than dead vegetables," she said and smiled. "It was a step." "I'm going to find the right way. I'm not going to stop," Hunt warned. "Somewhere between black avocados, and God," Leah said, and Hunt saw her trembling, tentative smile. So Hunt stopped being a Realist. And while Leah called to try again with the neighbors, Hunt reentered his studio and painted from sources both visible and invisible. It was a grouping - a medieval grouping: Tradespeople, Pilgrims -- all in sky-blue and oyster colored cloth -- two men, two women beside a sea, bent forward, hands touching two accepting children. It was the softest light, like Giotto's. The sand was gold; the water, blue. The children -"The Child Bathers" Hunt called the work -- were naked, veined, open as new April leaves. And they were Hunt's and Leah's. The others were strangers - strangers, yes. But their faces were unmistakable. Hunt presented the work at a wine-tasting party he and Leah gave on Labor Day. It was - the invited neighbors saw; Leah understood -- an embracing gesture. |
