The Woman Who Heard Color (13 page)

“Yes, she did go by Hanna Schmid,” Mrs. Fletcher said. “It was, of course, her maiden name, not her married name. It’s a little confusing I know—” She stopped abruptly, paused for a long moment, her eyes moving quickly and nervously around the room, finally settling on the window. The light falling into the room had shifted. “And I’ll get to the explanation for that.”

CHAPTER NINE

 

“Why, it looks like the Feldherrnhalle in Munich!” Hanna exclaimed, moving quickly through the Piazza della Signoria, maneuvering around pigeons pecking seeds and insects off the cobblestone, and vendors with small wheeled carts hawking postcards and trinkets.

“Our loggia,” Moses explained, attempting to catch up with the young woman, “was inspired by the Loggia dei Lanzi. Munich’s Feldherrnhalle wasn’t built until the mid eighteen hundreds by Ludwig I as a memorial for the heroes of Bavaria.”

Hanna stood and studied the three arches of the building, her eyes moving from one sculpture to the next displayed in the open arcade. “Fourteenth century,” she guessed aloud, turning to Moses, who nodded and smiled with approval. She had so much more to learn, but she had a wonderful teacher, if she could just listen and absorb.

“Giambologna,” Moses said, pointing to the sculpture under the third arch. “
Rape of the Sabine Women.
” His finger moved from the three figures twisting and wrapping around one another in a pose both beautiful and disturbing, to the figure holding the head of Medusa. “
Perseus
by Cellini . . .
Ajax and Patroclus
, a copy of a fourth-century B.C. Greek original.” He pointed out the Roman statues, along the back of the arcade, all inspired by Greek originals.

Along with Roman sculptures, in these past days in Florence they had seen hundreds of paintings and frescoes created during the Italian Renaissance. Hanna had studied such art at the museums in Munich and Paris, and in books, but here she felt so much closer to its creation, and with Moses by her side it was like having a private tour guide. He challenged her to really look, to examine technique and style, to decide for herself what she liked and did not like, and why. She could see how the technical skills had advanced from the earliest work they had seen in the lovely Uffizi—flat-faced, two-dimensional Madonnas—to the finely sculpted, shadowed, nuanced creations of the High Renaissance.

She thought of paintings she had seen by nineteenth- and twentieth-century artists in Paris and at home in Germany, and reflected on the fact that many of them were so realistic they could have been taken with a camera. Where were the modern artists headed from here? Was it a mere matter of advancing in technique? Surely there was more to it than that. If it could all be done with a camera, would the artist become obsolete? She thought of the very “modern” paintings they had seen in Paris and many of the contemporary pieces they were showing at the Fleischmann, creations where form and shape and color seemed to be as important as recognizable images and subject.

They had been away from Munich for just over a month now, and Hanna was still walking about as if in a dream. They had gone down through Austria, spending a week in Vienna, then on to Italy. She had fallen in love with the dark, moody canals of Venice, the city’s reflected light and color, and then the amazing pure light of Florence. One of the patrons at the Munich gallery had referred to sunny Italy, and now Hanna understood, though her own experience of Tuscany was enhanced by the stunning arrangement of harmonious tones. Her first encounter with Brunelleschi’s bright red Duomo against a sun-drenched sky of brilliant blue had created such a magnificent sound, Hanna felt as if her heart had stopped. Then the soft, sweet tones of the faded Italian frescoes, the shimmery, silvery sounds of the church bells, and the lovely melody of a sunset viewed from Fiesole.

It had been almost three years since Helene’s passing, and even now as she felt such joy, Hanna’s memories of those days after Frau Fleischmann’s death were vivid. She’d wandered about, feeling without direction, without connection. Though Helene had had little contact with members of the household other than Hanna and Moses, it seemed as if the very life, the air they all breathed, had been sucked out of the house and every living person who remained.

Hanna had continued to sleep on the small cot that had been brought into Frau Fleischmann’s room during those last weeks. No one told her to move back to the servants’ quarters. No one told her anything. Hanna would wake in the night, go to the closet, and take in the scent of Helene, pressing her beautiful gowns to her nose. She would sit at her vanity, open a bottle of perfume, then another, to bring her back.

Sometimes she went to the music room and played. The sounds and colors were discordant and out of harmony, though these were the same notes she had been playing before. Some afternoons she could barely make her way to the gallery. When she arrived, she went to the back room, sat, and wept.

Moses seemed to be in his own world of grief, and barely spoke to Hanna. One day, Josef said to her, “This isn’t what Frau Fleischmann would want, Hanna. You must come to the gallery in the morning now.” Hanna realized that Josef had taken over the day-to-day management of the business, that Helene’s passing had put Herr Fleischmann into the same unproductive state as Hanna herself.

She started arriving early. Josef pointed out what needed to be done at the gallery. She began to take pleasure in her work again.

Late the next week, Herr Fleischmann said, “You are arriving in the morning now?” He seemed truly surprised.

“For almost two weeks.” Hanna sensed that this realization had just come to him, that he hadn’t been aware that she was now spending full days at the gallery.

He looked confused, a faraway, distant look in his eyes, but he said no more.

“Josef said—” she started to explain.

“Yes, of course,” he broke in. “How fortunate we are to have Josef.”

After several more weeks Herr Fleischmann said, “Hanna, you have also been very helpful,” as though they were continuing a conversation they had started just moments before.

“Thank you, sir.”

“Helene would be proud of you.” He smiled and it was the first time she had seen him smile for so very long, the first time she had heard him speak his wife’s name since her passing.

After that, there were days when he spoke to her, others when he did not. He traveled often, sometimes leaving Munich for months. Hanna moved back to the servants’ quarters, though she was no longer an employee in the household. She worked only at the gallery. No one told her to move out.

Josef relied on her, particularly when Herr Fleischmann was away from the city. When Moses returned from these trips, he had new art and stories about when and how they had been acquired. She listened intently as he spoke with Josef, with patrons at the gallery. Gradually she became involved in these conversations, and then Moses began to share ideas with Hanna and ask her opinion as if he valued what she had to say.

She knew she was in love with him; perhaps she had been in love from that day he stood behind her, his lovely voice speaking the word
Cézanne
. They were connected, drawn together by this love of the art. But was this the extent of his affection for her? And could she dare have these feelings for her employer, for the husband of her precious Helene, whom she had loved so dearly? Sometimes the guilt overwhelmed her, but how could she contain or deny such emotions? One had little control over a passion as strong as love.

Sometimes he would touch her lightly on the hand or the shoulder, or offer a smile, a glance that made her ache inside. Words were never exchanged concerning their feelings for each other, but she sensed something was growing, a spark ignited within Moses as well as herself.

One day, several months after her nineteenth birthday, he said to her, “Hanna, I’m planning a trip in the spring to Vienna, and then down south to Italy. It would be a wonderful opportunity for you.”

What was he suggesting? That she accompany him? She had longed to go to Vienna, and Italy was a wish that came only in her dreams. “But, would that be . . .” She searched for the proper word, which she decided was the word
proper
itself.

“Proper?” he said with a grin, as if he had plucked the word out of her mind. “Yes, if you were to accompany me as my wife.”

She was silent for a long, stunned moment. Was he professing his love for her? He had never told her he loved her, never courted her in a traditional sense. And yet, there were moments when they worked side by side that she imagined it, that he did love her.

“Are you asking me to marry you?” she’d asked with disbelief.

“Your acceptance would be my greatest happiness,” he had replied.

 

 

T he following day, they crossed the lovely Ponte Vecchio, over the Arno River, and ventured into the Brancacci Chapel in the Church of Santa Maria del Carmine. It was early and they had the chapel to themselves. The walls were covered with frescoes, scenes depicting biblical themes, many from the New Testament, Christ and the apostles, all with halos that looked to Hanna like hovering golden plates.

“This fresco by Masaccio,” Moses said, pointing to a small section with two simple figures, “had enormous impact on Florentine art. Even the great Michelangelo came here to study. Masaccio’s work was considered innovative for its time. Can you imagine why?”

Hanna studied the two figures, obviously Adam and Eve. She glanced quickly around the chapel again at the biblical figures, strangely garbed in Renaissance costumes, placed in fifteenthcentury Florence from the appearance of the buildings.

The Adam and Eve were unclad, save for the leaves placed in strategic positions. Moses had earlier told her how such leaves were often added later to some of the sculptures that were created gloriously nude.

There was some advancement, she observed, in technique from earlier works—the angel foreshortened, and the light was skillfully, realistically presented. Though hadn’t she seen such efforts in the work of Giotto?

“The emotion!” she burst out. This Adam was clearly distraught, burying his head in his hands. And the Eve—why, Hanna could nearly hear her wail. And they were such plain-looking folk, peasants, not royalty. “The emotion,” she repeated, “as if they are real people with real feelings.”

Again Moses nodded, as if to say,
You are a very good student, my dear.

“How does that happen?” Hanna asked, and then realized she probably sounded stupid. “We’ve gone through the museums and you’ve pointed out work from a place, a particular time, and there seems to be a similarity in style, in manner, as if each artist is learning from the others, sometimes merely copying. And then suddenly, one artist decides, ‘I’m going to do it differently.’ ”

Moses laughed and Hanna felt her face flush.

Slowly, thoughtfully, he said, “I don’t know if
suddenly
is precisely how it all happens.”

Hanna laughed, too. “Can you imagine if Cézanne, or perhaps Monet or Renoir, or even Van Gogh, had lived in the fifteenth century and painted a fresco here at the Brancacci Chapel, an Adam and Eve, perhaps a Saint Peter, with their bold brushstrokes and bright, thick splashes of color!”

“Yes, now that would be
sudden
!”

“It’s all gradual,” she announced. “It’s artistic evolution. The changes come slowly.”

Moses touched his chin with his hand. The line between his brows deepened.

“But do you think at times these changes might move more quickly?” Hanna asked. “Like the technology in this century—the development of the automobile, the way factories are now producing what used to be made strictly by hand. Is the art world moving, changing more rapidly now, too?”

“Oh, Hanna, you give one much to ponder.” He smiled and added, “Some interesting ideas, Frau Fleischmann.” She loved it when he called her Frau Fleischmann, but on occasion she was overcome with an urge to turn and look to see if he were speaking to someone else. To see if Helene was standing beside them. Often the feeling was accompanied by guilt, as if she were attempting to take the place of Helene. She would and could not. She tried desperately not to think of herself as the third wife.

“Though it is not completely the artist’s vision,” Moses commented as they continued to look up at the fresco. “Something has been added.” He tilted his head toward her as if she were to guess. It seemed a little learning game he liked to play with her.

“The leaves,” she answered. “The leaves covering the . . .” Hanna blushed. She was standing here with her husband, a man who had now seen and touched, it seemed, every inch of her body, who had actually marveled over it their first night together. And here she was, blushing over the private parts of two painted figures.

“Yes, the leaves were added later,” Moses said, “by Cosimo III.”

“The king?”

“A Medici. Not royalty, in the strictest sense, but the family ruled over Florence.”

“Yes, the Medicis.” A name she was very much aware of during her days in Florence. “The power to censor?”

Moses nodded.

“Do power, wealth, and nobility give one the right to determine how an artist paints, or who is allowed to view the painting as the artist created it?”

“Power, yes,” Moses replied without hesitation. “Yes, power has been known to dictate art.”

“What do you think Masaccio would have to say about that?” she asked. “The defilement of his work?”

“He would not be pleased,” Moses said. “An artist is never pleased when his work is compromised.”

CHAPTER TEN

 

“An enormous chandelier hung in the entry of the Munich house,” Isabella told Lauren. “An original blown-glass piece created on the Venetian islands of Murano. My father purchased it for my mother on their honeymoon and had it sent ahead so it would be installed by the time they returned home. They went to Austria, then Italy, a two-month trip. People used to do that back then—particularly the wealthy, and my parents were very well-off. That chandelier would be worth a fortune had it survived.”