The Italian Teacher(41)

“Reminded you of what?” Bear asks, chuckling.

“The Caravaggio, with that apostle spreading his arms. I used to look at that for hours back in my guarding days.”

“What guarding days?”

“When I worked at the National Gallery. In London, with Mom.”

“Oh, sure, sure.”

“So,” Barrows asks, “you’re a Caravaggio fanatic like your son?”

“Dad is the one who introduced me to Caravaggio.” He turns to Bear. “Remember? At Chiesa di San Luigi dei Francesi, when Birdie was visiting.”

“Of course!” Bear says grandly, vaguely.

“Caravaggio is technically amazing,” Barrows acknowledges. “Still, I can’t help finding him a tad sterile. Each composition feels so staged. Those tableaux vivants—they all look, I don’t know, like some amateur theatrical troupe.”

“Oh, come on,” Pinch says. “Yes, he posed his models. But there’s stunning complexity in those compositions, also from a technical standpoint—that basket of fruit in Emmaus, just teetering there? Dad?”

“I hear where the lady’s coming from.” Pinch—who has revered Caravaggio because his father does—waits for Bear to add, “However . . .”

“However invaluable his contributions were,” Bear continues, “I’d take Carracci over Caravaggio any day.”

Pinch shuts his eyes an instant from surprise. “I remember you saying how absolutely anything a young painter needs can be found in Caravaggio.”

“If a youngster asked me what to study, I’d be damned if I sent him to Caravaggio.”

Pinch smiles in dismay. “I spent years copying Caravaggios.”

“You painted?” Barrows says.

“Not seriously. But when we lived in Rome, Bear gave me the most amazing lesson once. All the basics in one afternoon.”

“Were you good?” she asks.

“Terrible! Thankfully, nothing of mine survived. Dad advised me, quite rightly, that painting was not for me.”

“I said no such thing!” Bear sucks the lighter flame into his pipe.

“Yes, you did,” Pinch insists, fumbling for his own pipe. “When I was visiting you in Larchmont.”

Bear leans back in his chair, nostrils flaring, smoke drifting out. He frowns, shaking his head.

“You did!” Pinch says, too fervently.

“You shoulda kept it up, dummy—a kid of mine could have done something special!” He takes Pinch’s hand, dwarfing it, and gives a squeeze.

Pinch tunes out, distantly aware of Barrows inquiring about artistic process. With most outsiders, Bear refuses to talk shop, but he takes her questions, swilling wine and gesticulating in the smoky air. They both glance at Pinch, one after the other, as if he were an afterthought, then they resume.

“Is painting even part of the discourse?” Barrows is saying.

“What’s a five-dollar word like ‘discourse’ mean?” Bear responds, sighing. “A person can’t look at anything anymore without some fool telling him what it’s ‘supposed’ to mean.”

“Warhol says there’s no meaning behind his art.”

“It’s the first time I’ve ever agreed with that donkey. The way it used to be, when a guy couldn’t paint, he ended up a critic. Today, that guy, he’s the artist!”

Pinch notices her smirk. His father is so outdated, and she sees him stumble.

“The way you talk, young lady, it’s like any cockamamy new movement leads to a purer state. It’s like Karl Marx talking.”

“You saying modernism is a Marxist plot?” she asks, amused. “Because critics have suggested you’re a reactionary. That Greenberg article about—”

“That piece was ridiculous,” Pinch interjects. “And it was decades ago.”

“Influential though,” she notes.

“Look, here’s a secret for you,” Bear tells Barrows. “No great painter ever—not one—gave a damn about movements and manifestos. You think Degas sat around, sweating over Impressionism?”

“So what do you consider yourself part of?” she asks. “You’re an island alone?”

“The truth is this: There isn’t another artist around right now with my significance, not at this time,” he answers. “When you see a Rembrandt, that is him on the canvas, him seeing. When I paint, it’s the same. It’s somebody else in the picture, but it’s me on the canvas. Get that? Long after I’m under the dirt, I’ll still be there. Nobody’ll care anymore about some silkscreen of Marilyn Monroe or a dumb collage by that clown Bob Rauschenberg. What I’m working at is art. Not standing there like that lady who spreads her legs and pulls scrolls outta her jam pot!”

“Jam pot?” Barrows says, laughing. “So wait, I’m to gather that your motive is immortality?”

“Immortality ain’t good enough for you?” He winks at her. “Hey, you sitting for me later?”

“Not sure your son is cool with the idea.”

“Just because it takes so long,” Pinch says. “And we’re thinking of driving to Italy. Remember?”

“I remember saying I’m fine here. Or were you intending to bundle me into the car and start driving? Don’t be so uptight, Charles!”