ICARUS, SMICARUS. WHO’S COUNTING?

The scene : an agent’s office in downtown Ghent.  The agent, Tiberius Levinson XXIII, is sitting back puffing at an outsize cigar, his feet on the desk.  There is a hesitant knock at the door and his secretary, wearing a single pearl earring and very flimsy toga, approaches through the haze of smoke.  “It’s Bruegel,” she says “He has something to show you.”

 

“Which Bruegel?” says Levinson.  “There are two of them.  And one of them, I can’t remember which, is a pain in the arse.  Show him in.  There’s nothing else on.”

 

The secretary disappears and ushers in a man, shabbily dressed in dour colours.  He is carrying a large canvas covered in a dark shroud.

 

“Ah, Bruegel the Elder” snorts Levinson. “I was rather hoping it was you.  What have you got for me today, buddy boy?”

 

Bruegel unveils the canvas, a pastoral landscape scene showing a man ploughing a field above a seaport.

There are farm animals in the foreground

And in the background there is a bay, boats on the water and a town in the distance. The agent studies the canvas.

 

“That shit will never sell” said Levinson puffing away “Where’s Jesus?  No cherubs.  No Madonnas. No God even.  No celestial light shining on new babies. There’s no way a boring pastoral scene is going to sell in today’s market.  Who wants it?  A church?  Never.  A noble lord?  Forget it.  Bruegel my old china : you’ll have to do better than that.  This is business and I know you need the money.”

 

Bruegel shifts uncomfortably and strokes his forelock nervously.  He has spent three months on the painting and now no reward seems to be forthcoming.

 

Levinson continues, puffing on his cigar : “The picture needs something.  Maybe something classical.  It needs religion or it needs history so that in 500 years time someone whose name might be Dan Brown will want to write a book about it.”

 

He then draws himself up to his full five feet and assumes a serious, almost threatening pose : “But Bruegel, this is business.  I have a man from Antwerp coming in this afternoon and I’ve promised him an exciting new work of art.  Your landscape is not it.  What can we do about it?”

 

Suddenly there is a gleam in the agent’s eye.  He smiles triumphantly at Bruegel who looks humbled and nonplussed.  “I think I’ve got it.  I can save our sale.  Did you bring paints?”  Bruegel looks apologetically into his rucksack, his hangdog expression anticipating a severe cut in his household budget over the coming months and his wife Mayken would not be best pleased.

 

Levinson was getting impatient as he sucked on his cheroot.  Bruegel dug into his smock and unearthed a thin brush and a tube of black paint.  Levinson grabbed it impatiently, applied some paint to the brush and stood over Bruegel’s work.  He made a few brush strokes then stood back, hands on hips and looked at his work admiringly.  “That’s more like it,” he said, looking across at a flabbergasted artist.  Bruegel spluttered trying to find some words, but his voice-box failed him.

 

“That’s it” smirked Levinson admiring his work.  “Now we’ve got something to sell this afternoon, you mark my words.”  Bruegel shambled over and looked at his beloved canvas.  There, in the bottom right hand corner were two crudely rendered legs, upended in the waters of the bay, the product of 60 seconds’ worth of Levinson’s brush-strokes.  Bruegel scratched his wispy hair and looked quizzically at his agent.  “What have you done?” he asked, almost imploringly.

 

Levinson barked back at the cowered artist : “I’ve taken your painting which, when you brought it to me was totally unsaleable and transformed it into something with real potential.”   Bruegel scratched his head again : “How?” he asked.  “You’ve inserted two rather crudely drawn legs upside down in the sea.  How’s that going to sell my painting?”

 

Tiberius XXIII flourished his cigar triumphantly : “Classical mythology, my boy.  Classical mythology.  Think Greeks.  Consider the story of Daedalus and Icarus.  Icarus wants to escape from Crete.  His father, Daedalus is a master craftsman and he builds him a pair of wings made from wax and feathers.  But before dressing Icarus with the wings, he warns him not to sail too high, too close to the sun. But Icarus knows better and he flies higher and higher with his new wings. Eventually the wings melt and Icarus plunges headlong into the sea and drowns.  Those legs, my legs in your painting?  Icarus’, my boy. His final act.  Can’t you tell? Now all we have to do is get ‘The Fall of Icarus’ into the title of the painting and we’re up and away.  It’s business, Bruegel.  That’s why you need me. And I think I deserve a higher percentage since the major contribution is mine.”

 

Bruegel, blown away by this tsunami of intellectual bombast, walks humbly away.