Untitled #281
stefano cipriani

The scene: A gallery in Milan, where a man and a woman sip Pinot Grigio from plastic wine glasses and juggle paper plates laden with taleggio and prosciutto. Moving artfully around the gallery, they ignore the “Nude Woman on Subway” and head straight for this photograph, intriguingly titled, “Untitled #281.”

They sip and munch. Munch and sip. She moves closer as he steps back, and then returns to his side.

She looks at the photograph and sighs, rather exuberantly, and he thinks: When we are married, I will tell our children that this was the moment I knew she was “the one.”

Wow, she says. It’s so much like you.

He shrugs, clueless, as he is prone to be at times like these, standing before a painting, or a sculpture, or a photograph, hating himself, the way art makes him feel so much less than the man he wants to be. She, on the other hand, is a student of abstraction, and a large part of her charm, to him, is her ability to see things he can’t even begin to imagine. He looks hard at the photograph, angles and lines on canvas, and asks her to tell him what she sees.

Well, she says. It’s bold and strong and powerful.

His chest swells with pride. He thinks: I am bold, and strong, and powerful.

And complicated and abstract, she says assertively, the way she more or less says everything. Just look at that lattice of lines there on the left, all chocolately and golden. At first glance, the lines are three-dimensional, like steps. On second glance, they’re flatter than flat. And the light is really marvelous, drawing a shadowy line through the center — a city street on one side, a country lane on the other. So simple, it’s genius, really.

And he thinks: I am complicated and abstract. Deep, even. She thinks I’m a genius!

In fact, he may have said this aloud, for suddenly, she turns and considers him. You know, she says, You’re not at all what you seem.

A year later, he will recall this conversation on his wedding day, when he kisses someone else and realizes that she was the one who got away.

-- pamullman

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