Giorgione: Young Man With An Arrow 

     They entered the exhibit at the same time, but not together. Gary stepped aside to allow her to go first, earning him a quick, pleasant smile and a look into her distinctive pale green eyes.  He followed her into to the exhibition hall, wondering how he’d mix that precise shade on his pallette.  It was somewhere between jade and olive green.  Her bright strawberry blonde hair was all tight waves and appeared to spring out from under her black wool beret, falling just past her shoulders all around.  Below the neck, she was less colorful in a vertically ribbed grey cotton sweater and a faded A-line denim skirt with short black boots.

            He had come to the museum this weekday morning to see the Masters of Venice exhibit at the DeYoung Musem, arguing with himself that it wasn’t running away from his own  reproachful easel, or to avoid the landlord from whom he rented his noisy little live/work painting studio down on Army Street. He was here to see great paintings to be inspired to paint again, and to justify the expense of that very same studio. Who could paint on this unpromising drizzly  morning, as pale and  damp as a February day could be, anyway?  Accordingly, he’d taken a series of buses up to Golden Gate Park and the museum. 

            The green-eyed woman was a few paintings into the exhibit ahead of him, now, concentrating on a small painting in a square frame, arms crossed on her chest and her left leg extended out to her side, her back to the entrance and him.  He could see almost nothing of the painting, but it must be a good one, as she was parked in front of it unmoving, rather than shuffling slowly past it in the normal way of museum goers. Vermeer’s work could inspire that kind of awe as could Da Vinci or the Sistine Chapel Ceiling and sometimes Monet.  Gary looked back at the Mantegna rendition of The Martyrdom of St. Sebastian which left little to the imagination. Although the buff Saint himself looked bizarrely serene for a man with an arrow sticking  straight up into his head from an entry point at the lower right side of his jaw, and   several others sticking out of his body all over like porcupine quills while he stood tied upright to his pillar. Gary did not linger over it, especially as an elderly couple had joined him in front of the Mantegna, struggling to synchronize their audio tours with the exhibit, and arguing with each other. 

            He gave a large canvas on another biblical topic a brief  look, then turned the corner to his right to look at what had fascinated her although  she herself had moved over to the next room in front of a larger canvas. At first, he thought the painting was of a woman until he read the card beside it: Giorgione. Young Man With An Arrow.  She had taste, all right. The face and the hand holding the arrow were as finely rendered as any Da Vinci, the features fine and a bit androgynous surrounded by a cloud of dark curly hair, his expression serene and gentle. 

            Gary moved on as soon as the quarrelling couple reached him.  He found himself distracted from the art as he kept looking around for the woman in the beret, who stayed ahead of him by about half a room’s length  until he lost himself among Titian’s canvases.  At first glance, he’d thought she was young; now he realized  she was easily forty  or so. He was glad of this—perhaps it narrowed down any potential competition. He didn’t think he’d seen a wedding band on her left hand.  She was no perfect size eight, either. More like a perfect size twelve or fourteen with a generous hourglass figure.  But if she was unfashionably well nourished for the 21^st  century, she would have been perfect in the 16th.  He could imagine her stepping out of almost any canvas hanging here, surreptitously dressing  in her contemporary clothing in a dim corner.  Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese, Giorgione –any of them would have pleaded with her to model for them as another fair-haired, fair skinned Venetian  ideal of womanhood. She ought not to cover up  that perfect an example of what was meant by Titian hair with her black beret, though. A rope of pearls would suit her far better.

            Looking around, Gary was disappointed not to see her in easy view, and returned his attention to Titian’s Danaë.  Naked, fair haired Danaë lying on an elaborate bed, showed only mild surprise and pleasure at being showered with golden coins. 

            Call myself a painter!  Gary thought as he gazed up at the canvas, noting the textures of  hair and rosy skin—a great deal of that—and draped fabrics along with the mid-air gleam of falling coins. Titian probably wouldn’t think of me as one. Not when he could paint like this.

San Francisco in 2012 didn’t provide many naked models like the woman here, of course.  And for him to get a hold of that many gold coins would mean they’d have to be the foil-wrapped chocolate variety.  It was almost a relief to move on to the next room and stop comparing himself to a genius.  The women in the next three canvases seemed stiff, a bit simpering, the  painted faces and the hair did not have that in-dwelling personality of the Titian paintings, or the expert rendering of hair and fabric. Thank heavens that even the Italian Renaissance had produced a few second-raters! Distracted    from his absorbtion in the paintings, Gary was disappointed not to see the Titian-haired woman anywhere in this room or the next,  and did not, perhaps give Tintoretto’s paintings all the attention they deserved while looking around for her.

She was a stranger, I didn’t even know her name, Gary told himself. Why worry if she’s gone? He tried to set aside his disappointment as he studied an enormous canvas of a Lucretia with surprisingly muscular arms, then a final large canvas of Susannah and the Elders. A naked woman with a complex, twisty hairstyle sat by a pool side, making her toilette, almost filling the gallery with her pale glow. 

Finally, Gary left the exhibit, buying himself  a refrigerator magnet of the Young Man with an Arrow painting, since he could afford nothing larger. It was still only early afternoon,   and he had no greater  urge to go back to his studio than he had when he’d left it this morning.  To kill time he went up to the observation tower of the DeYoung to enjoy the view of the city. Maybe that would inspire him, since the Venetians hadn’t finished the job.  He stopped to stare  as he stepped off the elevator on the ninth floor and saw her. She stood in a beam of pale  yellow sunlight,  glowing almost like Susannah in that last painting. She had a museum shop bag looped over her left wrist, and stood gazing at a slightly larger print of the same painting  on the refrigerator magnet he’d chosen.  She studied it almost as raptly as she had gazed at the real thing down in the exhibit, ignoring the panorama of San Franciso at her feet.

            “Is that your favorite painting from the exhibit?” he asked.

            “Oh!” She jumped and looked up, then smiled at him. Surprised, but not displeased, which gave him the courage to stay put.

            “Yes I think so. I wanted him on my wall at home. It’s such a beautiful painting.  Which one was your favorite?”

Surprised, yes, unfriendly no, thank heavens. Even in the elapsed ninety minutes, he’d forgotten how vivid a green her eyes were.  He wished he could boast more striking coloring than thinning dark brown hair and light, somewhat muddy hazel eyes and a wintry pallor to his skin.  She was almost his height in her boots. Up close, he thought the modeling of her face had   the simplicity and purity that Botticelli and Da Vinci had made famous. Well a  Botticelli model who had been around the block a few times, judging by the lines around her eyes and the near invisible gray threads in her hair at her temples.

 “I think  it was Titian’s Danaë .  But all the Titians were wonderful.”

She nodded smiling at him. “I’d never seen one of his paintings  in  person, before, although I always knew he was considered great from my art history courses. I think my favorite of his was the portrait of Isabella D’Este. I like the quote about her saying even she thought she’d never looked that good in real life.” 

“I’m Gary by the way,” he blurted, forcing himself to keep  talking.  “I’m a painter.”   Belatedly, he stuck out his hand when she reached for it. Their first physical contact was an awkward knuckle bump.

“I’m Susan Oliver, nice to meet you.” Her hand was soft, the clasp just firm enough.  “I can draw a little, but I’m better at sculpture.”

“Would you—I mean can I interest you in some lunch?” He did not want to stop looking at her, even though lunch was dangerous, considering the state of his bank balance.  

“Thank you, yes. I’d love some lunch.”  Susan put her print back in her bag, and they stepped into the tiny elevator together.

“Tell me Susan, have you ever had any experience as a model? I’d love to paint your portrait, but I can’t promise I can  make you look quite as good as Titian did Isabella.”