To Little Tin Tubes of Paint

Renoir said that without you, there would be no Impressionism.

So the art historians have it all wrong. They talk about that fundamental impulse in the Impressionists to paint what they felt, put that into the image. Art was not about re-presenting what the eye can already perceive, but about bringing out what the heart, the soul adds to that and getting that on the canvas.

But what about the paint? What if Renoir had to spend time mixing his own paint? Making paint is an expensive and messy process. And the time! Good Lord. He’s in the studio, trying to find just the right shade between cream and blue for the dresses and because he is doing it himself, it’s never right. It streaks. The paint fades too quickly. After spending the morning on it, he gives up. He pours a glass of wine and takes a walk. He would never finish.

But he does finish. He doesn’t have to mix the paint. He orders 12 of you, little tubes, and keeps them in a box. His friend invites him down to his boat. He, without delay, throws all his paint on the back of his bike, the weight of it almost nothing. He remembers painters, when he was younger, carrying pig bladders full paint, heavy and awkward. He pulls into the park, watches the guests mill around, cannot believe his good luck.

And Monet. His friends are frustrated, lilies, lilies, lilies! At dinner he has to defend them; how can they not see the pain in that lily? So beautiful, so temporary. They float! Mon Dieu! he shouts and leaves, impatient. He goes back the next day, an easel, brushes, and several of you. You are his real friends. He paints the petal, the leaf, and the water underneath. And then he paints whatever is underneath all that.

It was your ease, your portability, your array of colors. It was the way it felt to squeeze the paint onto the palate. It was the consistency of indigo always looking like indigo. It was the lead. The way 5 years later, hanging in a gallery for the first time, the bottle of wine and the lilies had not faded. And a few, not all, could see the real subjects: mortality, beauty, and the blurred lines between them.