Gallery

A friend and I were walking through the town one-day. It was winter
and cold, all a little grey. Everyone wrapped in heavy winter clothes,
peering at the dark sky hoping against rain. The pavement held puddles
in the cracks and old leaves clogged the gutters. The friend was an art
student; you could look at him and see this easily, in the way he
dressed and walked. Although he was a lot more than this.

He was also an artist. A real artist with something like genius inside
him. I knew this without having to look at the fantastic colourful
canvases he would produce - apparently having to go no further than the
inside of his own head. I didn't have to see the rows of paintbrushes
in his room to know he was an artist, or the splatterings of colour on
his jeans.

How I knew was because I'd heard him speak - just that simple - believe
me there was no doubt either. We'd get drunk sometimes and off he'd go
riding the wave of Francis Bacon, composing the entire collection of
his works in words, so without the paintings to look at I could still
see them there in front of me, in full Technicolor. He'd preach to me
the religion of form and line, simplicity and the many secrets he'd
learnt. I'd hear him describe to me colours like they were old
girlfriends: Magenta full of life, Cerulean can be too much, Burnt
Sienna acting tough.

He was optimistic as well - a valuable trait in anyone. A great endless
conversationalist with a thousand different expressive hand gestures, a
filler of silences with excitement. He was a real racer when it came to
talking, tripping one word off the other, often having to pause for a
few moments to make sense of his own voice.

So there we were walking along through the town, both shivering from
the wind. I was tired of the weather and needed to sit down so I
suggested that we go into the little public art gallery that used to
crouch in the shadow of the enormous library. He just laughed. - Why
not? I said.

I've been in there before - it's full of crap, he replied. I could do
far better than what's in there.

Come on, just for a minute, I said. I've never been in an art gallery
before.

Well, he agreed, in we went. Inside it was just what I expected. White
walls and high ceilings, an echoing place that felt slightly hollow. It
was really just three big rooms, the walls filled with paintings,
sculptures arranged on the floor. On the way in my friend had warned me
that it wasn't going to be anything special, looking almost embarrassed
of what we might find in there, like it would be a belittling of art
and therefore of himself, like he had a responsibility to me and
everyone else to only let us see the greatest achievements of his
profession. He looked maybe a bit nervous as well.

Once I started to look around the place and take note of it all I
realised right away that I loved art galleries - in the same way that I
love libraries and museums. Not just for what's inside them (the
contents stand alone, the beautiful is still beautiful regardless of
where it is, and if this isn't the case - well, it's not art) but for
the simple idea of these places. The way that they smell and sound, the
feeling of history about them - and, more than anything, that feeling
of solitude you get where one minute you were walking in the middle of
ten thousand people and the next it's just you in all the cool and
calm.

It was surprising walking in to see my friend immediately change in
front of me. He moved over to a large canvas to the left of the
entrance and looked it up and down quietly, like he was reading it or
something. I was left on my own so went and sat on a soft chair to
leave him to it. I looked around from where I sat, happy to be in
there. I saw a lot that I liked, some that I didn't, though my
favourite of all was not even a painting. It was done with all
different pieces of cloth sown up together, beautiful golds and browns
and yellows, making the scene of a road in the country edged with tall
shadowy elms, and you could see that it was in the autumn because of
the tiny cloth leaves on the ground and the warm autumn colours. It was
called 'Golden Road'; I can only remember that one thing now, from the
whole gallery just that.

There were no other people inside. I was surprised what with it being
such a miserable day, but I was pleased as well, pleased that the whole
gallery was ours.

My friend moved around in a slow and thoughtful way, deliberately
studying each item, not just moving his eyes around the pieces but
moving his whole body as well. Some he would look at for a long time,
so as I thought he was just standing there daydreaming, like people do
through the windows of trains, and with others he would pass over them
in seconds, as though they were hardly even there - I felt sorry for
these ones, sorry for the people who produced them, sorry that they
were lacking that certain quality that made my friend the art student
find them interesting in some way.

In that whole gallery the thing that interested me the most was my
friend. The way he studied and absorbed, the way he looked, the look
that most people get only when they are sitting in front of the TV. I
realised that art is nothing unless it is observed - until then it is
only potential, the unseen brilliance of somebody's mind, worthless
until it can be viewed, appreciated, uncovered. My friend developed a
connection with each piece he looked at, invisible but there, so for
those little spaces of time both him and the work became something
more, a little closer to their true nature. They existed at the same
time, in the same space; I saw that the beauty truly lay in the space
between the eye and the canvas, where the two meet and neither can
exist on its own.

This must be what every artist intends. The work of art is never truly
dead. The life it had in the mind of the artist, when it was created,
resides silently and rests, rekindling every time someone takes the
time to look, setting forth and vibrating, allowing everyone to be that
artist for just a short while. This I suppose is the sublime in art,
the utter humanity of the endeavour, so much effort and beauty going
into the simple act of communication.

When we left my friend regained his characteristic loquacious energy,
although not mentioning the gallery.

Did you enjoy it? I asked. You seemed to?

Alright, he said. I tell you what though, I'll take you to a proper
gallery someday, up in London - you'll be amazed.

Yes, I said, ok, but tell me, what did you think, did you like this
gallery?

He told me that he felt tired. He said that going into art galleries
wore him out, took a lot from him. At first I couldn't
understand.

But why? I said.

He didn't know, couldn't explain it, couldn't explain to me that
although he was an artist and loved more than anything else seeing all
the beauty and wonder in the creations of other people it took
something fragile from inside of him and exposed it, leaving a little
piece of what keeps him alive back in the gallery with the paintings,
becoming part of them, of their own personal histories.

I understood. I'd seen him and could understand how cold and bleak that
winter street looked to his eyes, and I understood the tiredness.

I wanted to go to the galleries in London, of course to see all the
fantastic paintings, but more than anything else to see my friend the
art student making those paintings come alive, removing himself just a
little way from the rest of us.