Standing alone in his dimly lit studio, the artist beheld his creation. The glow from the liquescing candles cast an intransient half-light upon her carefully daubed visage. As he stood before her, he felt his heart pang with longing; enamored by her tender contours, simultaneously aroused by her sensuality and overcome with an innocent yearning for the embrace of the memory of a mother beginning to fade.
His creation, encapsulated within her frame, transcended mere oils and canvas. She had become something more—a silent observer of the man who had annexed her heart. He longed for her, and she for him.
A palette in one hand and a brush held tentatively in the other, he extended his arm, the tip caressing the air surrounding her, his movements choreographed in a silent dialogue, building their relationship amongst the vacant space. She would not abandon him like others had before her. She was his. Forever.
He stroked the gentle slope of her neck in charcoal black, the curvature of her form. She, in turn, would answer softly, arching into his touch.
He held his breath momentarily, focusing on the shadows that were her eyes—his own duality. With every deliberate stroke, he sank further into his own darkness, the bristles stroking the canvas like a lover’s dwindling memory—smooth against bare skin. His heart quivered as he formed the curves of her lashes, the veil between the seen and unseen, known and unknown. They spoke of the delicate balance between the explicit and the concealed, the truth and the half-realities betwixt.
He hesitated momentarily, as if seeking permission to proceed, to expose not only her spirit but his own phantoms. His hand, guided by an amalgamation of fear and desire, traced the weight of his soul.
Her eyes closed in poignant and paradoxical ecstasy, hollowed into submission and deference—pain and acceptance, his and hers.
He conversed with the lines and contours of his creation. His pupils dilated, absorbing every detail, every word transmitted through her. His hand trembled at times, unsteady under the weight of their connection. He had known her in his solitary heart long before they had become the creator and the created.
She was a mirror of his own self, a conversation of his own dull aching. As his brush lingered on the round delineations of her belly, he felt within it life—a life he would never procreate, but within her, he could be born. Encased in her motherly form, he would spectate the rebirth of a man haunted by his own self. She comforted him in lullabies of Prussian blue, veiled and hushed. She laughed softly in tendrils of yellow ochre before subsiding into the melancholy lament of ultramarine. She understood him. His colours filtered into her mood. They would become one as he shaped her form.
The distance between them, vast and dense. In the consecrated space where they separated and converged, entwined by reality and art, they found unity within the sacred silence of themselves.
As the candles flickered into darkness, Munch placed his brush on his easel, his hands stilled and his heart heavy. They were complete. A tear steadily filtered down his face, before nestling into his moustache—a bitter and enduring reminder that his creation was soon to come to pass. His Madonna would be freed into the world like a cypsela released into the wind. He sighed heavily. He had always known this day would come. Their conversation would have to end.
And he would let her go, of course.
But she would always be his.
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Thread opens weekly. Mind the velvet. Offer snacks to the Oracle with caution.
