Work Of Art

10. Sorrow

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Offended, but trying to hide it, I move my eyes back to the paintings. Trying to hush the fire burning within me, I stare at the famous Starry Night, watching as the colors dance in front of me - from dark blues to bright yellows, it all leading me into a whole different world.

A world that lasted only for a second before Taehyung opened his posh mouth again.

''Would you be able to tell if it's authentic?'' He asks as if demanding a challenge, though the corner of his mouth tugs up in a smirk and I know it's jokes all over again.

''Are you talking about the painting or your persona? Because if it's you, I'm one hundred percent sure that it's fake.''

I try again, but he bursts into a small laugh, proving that lighting me on fire was all he wanted.

''You're right'', he says, eyes wrinkling up as he smiles, ''Though not about me, but about the painting. All you see in here is a perfect replica of the real deal. However, there is one single thing I own that's as real as me standing right here, right now, in front of you.''

Before my tongue could form a question, he was already standing in front of a drawing. ,It was nothing more but a simple sketch of a naked woman sitting with both head and arms resting on her knees.

The iconic name Vincent was scribbled down on the bottom left and a small, yet strong word is written on the bottom right - Sorrow.

''It's a sketch,'' Taehyung says, his voice changing tones, now sounding deeper, more serious. ''You might think it's not much, but Van Gogh considered it one of the best figures he'd ever drawn.''

He takes a sip of his drink, moistening the throat before the words could come back up again. ''It looks simple, yeah? A drawing done by nothing more than a pencil, pen and ink on a piece of paper. Though the story that holds on to it is so much deeper than what meets the human eye.''

''What's the story behind it?'' Intrigued by the way he speaks, I wanted to know even more.

''The model you see on the sketch, her name was Sien Hoornik. A woman Van Gogh encountered wandering the streets of The Hague with her five-year-old daughter in the year 1882. But Sien wasn't just an ordinary woman.''

He stops, leaving his drink on the chair seated in the middle of the room before he placed both of his hands behind his back. ''She was a pregnant alcoholic and a prostitute that soon ended in the hands of poverty. Van Gogh then, out of pity, took care of her and offered her refuge, providing her shelter and in return, she modeled for him.''

Something within me changes, like a light switch that somebody's hands touched and now I see Taehyung under a completely different light.

Before, he was a spoiled rich kid who inherited money from his father and spent it on paintings just out of boredom.

Now, he's a man, enjoying not just the art, or the technique, but the whole story behind it, which made me think that there's more to Taehyung than what he allows others to see.

''They lived together for a year or so'', he continues, ''and many say that it was the happiest time of his life. He depicts Sien as a woman scarred by life, and saw parallels to his own drawings of age-old trees ravaged by nature.''

A pause.

''I wanted to express something of life's struggle, both in that white slender female figure and in those gnarled black roots with their knots.''

And then he looks back at me, smiling. ''That's what he said, but the happiness didn't last fot too long. It was the prostitution and the alcohol that made them go separate ways.''