Lisette's List by Susan Vreeland Read Free Book Online Page B

see in it.
    “I like the color of the building.”
    “ Jaune vapeur , we called it. Inside that building, at long lines of tables, dozens of workers turned raw pigments into paint and filled the tubes Tanguy sold to Pissarro, Cézanne, Van Gogh, Gauguin, and others—the hues we made in the furnaces of the Usine Mathieu, our factory right here in Roussillon, as well as those made from other substances. Red roots of the garance plant cultivated here in the Vaucluse, sap from Turkish trees, powders of blue stones from Siberian and Afghani riverbanks, dried blood of South Americanbeetles that fed on cactus—all the colors of the world on their way to become paintings. I saw it, those colors.
    “In the meadow, there, in front of the factory, see, Lisette? The tallest man? I imagine that it’s me calling upon the purchasing agent.” He lowered his chin, as though a little embarrassed to reveal this.
    Right then I understood why Pascal had chosen that painting. Despite its ordinariness, it spoke to him of his purpose, his participation in the world of art, the link in the chain from mine to majesty, and therefore it merited being hung alone.
    I looked around the salle at his seven paintings. Was there any one that spoke to me of my purpose? What was my purpose anyway? It had to be something greater than shelling peas. But today, and in the days to come, it was to absorb all that Pascal was telling me so that I might impress Monsieur Laforgue. Beyond that, I couldn’t see.
    “Someday, Lisette, the world will love the jaune vapeur on that building.”
    “He’s famous now, this Monsieur Pissarro, n’est-ce pas ?”
    “By the time Camille was an old man, his paintings sold well for high prices. I could never buy one then. He had a framer from the guild carve intricate frames and cover them with real gold leaf. He was far beyond what I could make or trade for.”
    “So you treasure them all the more?”
    “No, Lisette!” he bellowed. “Not because they’re valuable. I treasured each one the day I acquired it, for what it meant to me.”
    “Oh.”
    “That isolated paint factory makes my heart swell even today. Every miner I ever knew, every sore back, every day they never saw the sun, every choking breath, and every tongue caked with ochre dust—Maurice, Aimé Bonhomme, my father, and I swinging our pickaxes in rhythm all day long—all of that is in this painting. And it’s in the painting of the girl walking up the ochre path with hergoat. And the history of Roussillon is in this one of the tile roofs of the Hermitage in Pontoise. Those roofs are stained red-orange from Roussillon pigments. And the red ground and the row of bushes aflame—that’s Roussillon red-ochre. That may not mean anything to you now, but if you had lived here all your life and had seen those miners come home filthy and exhausted, it would.”
    I THOUGHT HE HAD finished talking for the day until I heard him murmur, “Red Roofs, Corner of a Village, Winter.” Then “Le Verger, Côtes Saint-Denis à Pontoise,” as if one title wasn’t enough. “Six roofs, ocre rouge . Five chimneys, jaune nankin clair . Six fields on the hillside behind— vert foncé , green so rich and dark it must have been spinach growing there; ocre de Ru , pale, like wheat; ocre rouge; vert de chou , the light green of a cabbage; rose earth; and the duller olive green, vert Véronèse. ”
    He found another sheet of paper, sat down at the small desk, and wrote down the colors.
    “Why are the names of colors so important?” I asked.
    “Because God conceived of those colors, and we mined the ochres that made them! Because there is holiness in color. It’s the queen of art.” His voice exploded with exasperation. “Because I don’t want to forget when … when I go on.”
    Oh my, what I had caused him to think.
    We were quiet awhile, until I asked, “How many frames did you have to trade for Red Roofs ?”
    His head sank slowly until he was looking at his