Blood and Gold - Anne Rice [124]
Where Botticelli had painted the dark grass rich with varied flowers, I revealed the small insectile creatures inevitably concealed there, and then the most flamboyant and beautiful of creatures, the butterflies and the varicolored moths. Indeed my style ran to frightening detail in every respect, and soon an intoxicating and magic forest surrounded the Mother and Father, the egg tempera lending a gleam to the whole which I had never achieved in the past.
When I studied it, I became ever so slightly dizzy, thinking of Botticelli’s garden, indeed, thinking even of the garden I had dreamt of in old Rome, of the garden I had painted—and soon I had to shake myself and collect myself because I did not know where I was.
The Royal Parents seemed more solid and remote than ever. All trace of the Great Burning was now gone from them in that their skin was purely white.
It had been so long since they had moved that I began to wonder if I had dreamt those things which had happened—if I had imagined the sacrifice of Eudoxia—but now my mind was very much intent upon escaping the shrine for long periods of time.
My last gift to the Divine Parents—after all my painting was done, and Akasha and Enkil were decked out with all new jewels—was a long bank of one hundred beeswax candles which I lighted for them all at once with the power of my mind.
Of course I saw no change in the eyes of the King and Queen. Nevertheless, it gave me great pleasure to offer this to them; and I spent my last hours with them, letting the candles burn down as I told them in a soft voice of all the wonders of the cities of Florence and Venice which I had come to love.
I vowed that every time I came to them I would light the one hundred candles. It would be a small proof of my undying love.
What caused me to do such a thing? I have no true idea. But after that I kept a great supply of candles always in the shrine; I stored them behind the two figures; and after the offering, I would replenish the bronze holder and take away all melted wax.
When all this had been done, I returned to Florence and to Venice, and to the rich high-walled little city of Siena, to study paintings of all sorts.
Indeed, I wandered through palaces and churches throughout Italy, quite drunken on what I beheld.
As I have described, a great fusion had taken place between Christian themes and ancient pagan style, which was developing everywhere. And though I still perceived Botticelli to be the Master, I was taken aback by the plasticity and wonder of much of what I saw.
The voices in the taverns and in the wine shops told me I ought to go North to see paintings as well.
Now this was news to me, for North had always meant the land of the less civilized, but so great was my hunger for the new styles that I did as I was told.
I found throughout all of northern Europe an intense and complex civilization which I had surely underestimated, most particularly I think in France. There were great cities in existence and Royal Courts which supported painting. There was much for me to study.
But I did not love the art which I saw.
I respected the works of Jan van Eyck, and Rogier van der Weyden, of Hugo van der Goes, and of Hieronymus Bosch and many other nameless masters whom I beheld, but their work did not delight me as did the work of the Italian painters. The Northern world was not as lyrical. It was not as sweet. It still bore the grotesque stamp of the work of purely religious art.
So I soon returned to the cities of Italy where I was richly rewarded for my wanderings with no end in sight.
I soon learnt that Botticelli had studied with a great master, Filippo Lippi, and that this one’s son, Filippino Lippi, was working with Botticelli right now. Other painters whom I loved included Gozzoli and Signorelli, and Piero della Francesca and beyond that so many that I do not want to mention their names.
But all during my study of painting, my little travels, my long nights of