Artists and Women and Light, by Roy Beckemeyer

The Milkmaid, by Johannes Vermeer (Netherlands) 1656-1660

Artists and Women and Light

“It’s all about light,” said Vermeer.
 
“Oh, I agree,” said Monet. “Light and how it changes minute by minute.  Almost as if it were being swept up and carried along by the wind itself.”
 
“Oh, but I prefer the constancy of light,” said Vermeer, “how it is like whitewash clinging to the almost flat wall, a sheet of light sliding so slowly, so carefully to the floor. And why did you hide your wife from the light?” he asked. “Look at my maiden, her face sculpted into real dimensions, rounded, inviting you to run your hand over her forehead, down the curve of her cheek. Look at her white arm, dissecting the dark floor of my painting from the white wall and its luminous work.”
 
“Oh, but that was the very idea, Johannes,” said Claude, “that was the idea—to have her head shaded, the dark parasol her crown, her face beaming back at us and highlighted by being in and of the shade but lightened by the aureole of clouds and sky and her skirt billowing brightly in the wind. Look at our son, in the background, lighted just as she, tied to her in this way so completely. That was the idea, you see, to make her stand out - set in light but apart from it, special, striking and unique in a light all her own, not the brilliant light of day, but her own warm and living light.”
 
“Say, now, old, fellows, it is so much simpler than that,” said Warhol. “These days we artists dictate the light.  We snap on the switch, adjust the clamp, angle the reflecting foil, spotlight the face.  Or even simply imagine doing it. Look at Marilyn.  Surrounded by gold, but more luminous than gold herself, her hair the brashness of fool’s gold. You see, the background, tarnished though it may be, asserts her claim to royalty, but the yellow hair, the pink face, both cast some doubt. Here is light manipulated to tell a new tale.”
 
“Oh, but your light is so brazen,” said Vermeer, “it does not love your subject.”  
 
“And your light is neither realistic nor impressionistic,” said Monet, “it does not let us imagine her alive in sunlight. It neither revels in her nor reveals her at all.”
 
“Ah, but that is the point,” replied Warhol, “that is the whole point.”
 
Roy Beckemeyer

Roy J. Beckemeyer’s fifth and latest book of poetry is The Currency of His Light, (Turning Plow Press, 2023). Beckemeyer’s work has been nominated for Pushcart and Best of the Net awards and has appeared in Best Small Fictions 2019. He has designed and built airplanes, discovered and named fossils of Palaeozoic insect species, and has traveled the world. Beckemeyer lives with and for his wife of 61 years, Pat, in Wichita, Kansas. His author’s page is at royjbeckemeyer.com.

The Promenade, Woman with a Parasol, by Claude Monet (France) 1875

Gold Marilyn Monroe, by Andy Warhol (USA) 1962