Arnaud‘s Art
The boy dragged his feet along the long and wide hallway. Still, they fell silent on the marble floor. His breath, on the other hand, could be heard even over the chitter and chatter of the other visitors, not least because he wanted it to be heard. He sighed audibly every few steps and leaned heavily on the handles of his companion’s wheelchair. He was careful, though, to not slow him down.
“How much further?” he whined.
His companion ignored him, at least on the outside. On the inside, he smiled.
“Come on, Arnaud, tell me.”
Arnaud kept ignoring him, watching the people around them instead. As could be expected, the hallway was filled with people, idly wandering around and watching the numerous pictures on the wall. They were the usual tourists you found here every day of the week: a pair of lovers, walking arm in arm and having mostly eyes for each other, only occasionally commenting on the art; three girlfriends, who giggled at the few nudes and took pictures of them with their phones; a group of maybe eight or nine people lead by a tour guide. Every now and then, a guard walked past them all.
After a while and further slow steps of the teenaged boy, Arnaud craned his neck and looked up. “You could walk faster, Benjamin,” he suggested mildly, “We’re nearly there.” Now, he smiled but his long and thick grey beard obscured his lips. Equally long hair hung over his face, making it difficult if not impossible to read his expression.
“Where?” Ben asked exasperated. It wasn’t the first time Arnaud told him that they had just about reached their destination, only to stop at this painting or that or to gaze at one statue or another.
“Just around the corner.” This time, the amusement was audible in his voice and Ben furrowed his brows.
He sighed again, but he did fasten his steps. Most people around them were considerate of the older man in a wheelchair and his young companion and stepped out of their way, disrupting their enjoyment of the paintings on the walls. The rubber wheels squeaked on the floor, and some people looked at the pair disapprovingly. It was unusual to walk through the gallery with such purpose. Even though many came there to see the same room the two were seeking out, they walked slowly, strolling rather than rushing. But the hope to end this excursion as soon as possible made the young man’s steps fast again.
A wide doorway lead from the hallway to a room that seemed too small to contain the masses it had to expect. It was crowded. People stood shoulder to shoulder and tried to look over each other or get through the mass to the front where a red barrier rope kept them a few metres away from the most famous painting in the world. A glass wall shielded it further from all the people who just came here to see her, the Mona Lisa.
The visitors Arnaud had noticed earlier had also reached the room. The lovers, still clinging to each other were as close as possible to the painting and finally paid more attention to the art than to each other, the three girls had decided to look at the wall-filling painting opposite the Mona Lisa first, the Coronation of Napoleon by Jacques-Louis David, while the guide explained facts and told anecdotes in rapid Spanish to his visitors a bit to the side. The guard, who was walking up and down the hallway just moments before had decided to rest for a while and sat on an uncomfortable chair in a corner.
Ben had stopped a few steps past the doorway and leaned on the handles of the wheelchair again. “So, that’s it?” he asked, without actually looking at the painting.
Arnaud turned around again. “Look at ‘er. Isn’t she beautiful?” Through all the people, it was nearly impossible for him to actually see the painting. He still only took a moment to study his companion before he looked in the general direction of the Mona Lisa again. “Bring me closer to ‘er.”
Cameras clicked over and over again. Two children from the tourist group, too young to be interested in art yet, just like Ben, had wandered over to the group of girls, smiling at Arnaud and Ben in passing, and stared like the girls at the large and colourful scene of Napoleon standing over his wife Joséphine and holding a sparkling crown over her head.
Ben sighed again. “Arnaud!” he whined. “I’ve seen it. Can we go now?”
Arnaud shook his head. “You know our deal. I could ‘ave called the police on you,” he said, “Now go and look at ‘er properly.”
Ben kicked lightly against the right wheel of the wheelchair and walked forward, grumbling about the older man. But before he had made more than a step, Arnaud caught his wrist and turned him around.
“What?” Ben hissed, “I’m going to look at it, aren’t I?”
“Looking is not enough, Benjamin. I want you to see it. ‘ow can you know what to look for if you do not see?”
Ben shook his head and freed his arm with a quick jerk. “Whatever, old man, it’s just a painting like all the others here.” He stepped out of Arnaud’s reach towards the Mona Lisa, looking at her just to get away from the older man.
“It is so much more,” Arnaud murmured, sure that Ben didn’t hear him.
Ben shouldered his way through the group of Spanish tourists along with the three girlfriends, who decided to use his rude behaviour to take pictures with the famous painting, one after the other. Ben stood at the rope and looked at the most famous woman in the world, imprisoned behind a thick wall of glass that made it difficult to see her. The light reflected in the bulletproof glass. The beige wall and the golden frame encased a small dark and gloomy picture of a sad woman. This, at least, was the impression Ben got from her when he finally took the time to look at her. He still didn’t get why the painting was famous. It seemed like thousand others he had seen in the Louvre that day.
The other visitors were of a different opinion. They stood there and stared, awe and fascination on their faces, or just the feeling of satisfaction you get when you are close to someone or something of importance. Ben just shrugged on the inside. What was so special about the portrait of some random woman that people had to stand in front of her for more time than any other painting, and even taking selfies with it?
He spend some time there, but he just didn’t get it.
“La Joconde was stolen once and attacked at least three times,” Arnaud said when Ben returned to him.
“So? That only means it’s famous. For the sake of being famous. People are interested in it because other people are. That’s all.”
“Maybe, Benjamin, maybe. What does this tell you about art?”
“Do you have to make everything a lesson? You told me you’d teach me how not to get caught. What does this have to do with an old piece of canvas...”
“La Joconde is painted on poplar panel, Benjamin. Does
this teach you anything?”
“Should it?” Ben was getting more and more exasperated with the old thief who had basically blackmailed him to come to the Louvre with him on this weekend. It was the condition that he would not be arrested for trying to burgle his home.
“Yes, it should. You can’t roll it up, for example.”
“You’re not telling me you wanted me to look at the Mona Lisa to steal it, do you?”
Arnaud shook his head. “Don’t be ridiculous, Benjamin.”
When the teenager sighed with relief, Arnaud smiled the first time since they had entered the Louvre openly at him. “So you do know your limitations,” he said.
Without really thinking much about it, with an agreement in their actions that hadn’t found its way to their words yet, they had left the room of the Mona Lisa and returned to the great hallway just outside, where paintings over paintings filled all walls up until the ceiling and where stone benches stood in the middle for tired visitors who needed a moment to themselves. Ben had sat down opposite Arnaud’s wheelchair, that was now blocking the path of unobservant visitors. They spoke silently, making sure that nobody heard them as the nature of their conversation was slightly suspicious.
“I wouldn’t know ‘ow,” Arnaud admitted, “It’s not like in 1911 when you could just walk out of ‘ere with ‘er. That doesn’t meant you can’t steal in the Louvre, of course.”
“From the Louvre,” Ben corrected without thinking much about it. Even though Arnaud was French, his English was excellent.
Arnaud actually laughed at that. “No, even though there are less protected works, I do know my limits, and I do not mean my legs. I do mean in the Louvre. There are quiet a few pickpockets around here.”
“Fascinating. You still haven’t told me why we are here,” Ben said with the driest voice he could muster.
Now it was Arnaud’s turn to sigh. “Did you see the people react to ‘er? Art is never just art. A painting is never just a painting, just like a theft is never just a theft. There is always a story. Sometimes the story is important, sometimes it isn’t. You do not need to know the story to understand art. You do not need to like something to understand it or appreciate it. La Jocone is famous because she is famous. That is true. It is not the ‘ole story, but it is true. If she weren’t so famous, less people would want to see ‘er. It wouldn’t change the painting at all, she would still ‘ave ‘er mysterious smile and she would still be a masterpiece of Da Vinci, no matter ‘ow many people come to see ‘er. And that she is famous doesn’t make ‘er better either. She’s just a painting like many others, no matter what people say about the composition or the artistic execution. It is not the artist that makes something ‘art’, it’s not the technique and it’s not even the reception. There is art that was never considered great and there might still be people ‘o love it. No, art is a sphere of its own, and always lies in the eyes of the be’older. If you want to be successful in any kind of job, you need to understand what other people see in it, even if you do not care about it. Do you understand?”
Ben looked at Arnaud for a while, not saying a word. He tried to understand what the older man wanted to tell him, but in the end, he just looked back into the room filled with tourists, all trying to catch a glimpse of a supposed masterpiece that looked like any other painting to him.
“It’s oil and wood,” he said in the end, “Just a bit of oil on a piece of wood. There’s nothing special about it.”
“There is, if you ask some art experts or me. I do like La Joconde.”
“But that’s not the point. It’s the reaction of people. It’s never the artwork, just the perception of people. That’s what makes something great or valuable. - I still think it’s boring.”
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You met the character Ben before in
Lady Susanna's Necklace,
Inspector Coultry's Boat and
Zacharia's Stern's Last Will. This is chronologically the first story.
I think I remember correctly that
The Coronation of Napoleon hangs opposite the
Mona Lisa but it's a few years since I was in the Louvre and I couldn't find the information on the Louvre's website (which doesn't mean it's not there, of course).
Photos, if you're interested:
That's me with the Mona Lisa in the background.
This painting is huge.
