Heartbeat

36| Reflection

"So you took me to the Getty Centre?," I questioned as Avery led Nathaniel and I through wide halls. Avery hummed, "Mhmm, but I thought you should see a particular painting."

"I know you have a knack for science but I thought you should see the other side of the spectrum, art," she said as she finally came to a stop in front of a painting of an oddly dressed man. Odd because he is definitely not wearing modern clothes.

"Umm, what am I supposed to be looking at here," I said and Avery smiled and said, "I thought you might say that, this painting is called An Old Man in Military Costume by Dutch painter Rembrandt Van Rijn."

She gestured for both of us to sit down on a bench right in front of it and I whispered to Nathaniel, "Why did she bring me here?"
"I don't know why but I know there is a good purpose, it's best to just listen," he said making me sigh and turn my attention back to Avery who sat down beside me.

"If you notice, the man in the painting was not made to look handsome," Avery pointed out and I nodded then she continued to say, "That is because Rembrandt favoured uncompromising realism so much that it even lead some critics to believe that he preferred ugliness to beauty."

I stayed silent, trying to decipher what message Avery was trying to relay but nothing came up. So I continued to listen to her as she continued to say, "Realism rejects the imaginative idealisation of subjects in favour of outward appearances. This style of art stimulated interest in accurately recording contemporary life and society."

"Just like life, we like to idealise it, focus on the good features and we paint this image that life should be a specific way such as growing up, be successful in our careers, finding love, having a family, making memories, and living a good long life," she said as she continued to look at the picture.

She pointed at the picture and said, "But what if we decided to paint life for what it really is and there you see the flaws, the obstacles that keep us from having this so called happily ever after. We get to see life for what it really is, it has no pattern, it is unpredictable."

"When we see the roughness and ugliness of life, we see how life isn't going to be like those movies or those fairytales, we see life as it is, a lot of challenges and sufferings sprinkled with a bit of happiness," she said and I was taken aback by her words. I've never been interested in art but Avery's interpretation put it in a new light.

"You see Rembrandt left behind this painting that has changed the world of art but behind that achievement was Rembrandt, the Dutch painter who died poor and misunderstood," she explained as she stood up making Nathaniel and I follow suit.

She led us to another painting. This time it was a bright painting of flowers. She then said, "See this painting by Van Gogh?" I nodded then she said, "It's beautiful and when you look at it, it may invoke happiness but Van Gogh on the other hand didn't live such a happy life, in fact, he had a miserable one."

She finally turned to me and said, "My point here is that, even if it's really hard to accept, life isn't going to be fair Alex."

"I know that," I said and she shook her head and said, "You say that you know life isn't fair but deep down you're still asking why life is doing this to you." I felt her words hit me like a bullet. It hurt but it was for the right reasons. I watched her gesture Nathaniel to leave us alone as she walked with me across the halls.

"I know I can't just tell you how to accept things, every person has their own way of doing so but I'm here to help you alleviate the pain, in a way," she said as she stopped at another bench and gestured for me to sit down with her. "Like Nathaniel, I also had to watch Amelia slowly die in front of me, she was a really good friend and it may not have hurt me as much as Nathaniel, it still hurt me a lot," she explained and I stayed quiet, unsure of what to say.