The Painting

Why does she smile like that? And what is the fascination with those red lips? A tale of two artists and the horror that lies in wait.

The Painting

By Daniel Rodriguez

“Do you believe in hauntings?” Professor Brown asked his German 18th Century Art class. It was one of those obscure classes in the university that drew only an audience of anywhere from five to fifteen students a semester. This year it was a plump seven students and one teenage assistant who helped him with displays and projects.

Professor Brown had scratchy facial hair, a clean top mixed with pure white skin, dark eyes, and it drove the girls mad. He knew this more than anyone; how they pictured playing with the light bush beneath his lips and chin, the long strokes of petting his thick hair. He could see them often staring, rather gazing, at his face and what was the rest of his body. He couldn’t tell if he should ignore this and be strict in his lectures, but on occasion he found himself milk the pauses and stood in front of everyone before he got to the action of his lesson. .

Truth was he may very well have been a vain man.

The class did not immediately answer. After a pause, one girl amid a day dream rose her hand in hoping she would give the answer he wanted. “Well, I do believe my mom’s aunt’s house was haunted.”

A slight chuckle from two students. Professor Brown was not completely amused. 

“An interesting note Sin,” he responded. Sin being short for Cindy. “Today we are going to be looking at the most infamous painting from the Mad Painter Joseph Liebert. Now, I know some of you who have a good literary mindset may wonder if I am reaching a connection to H.P. Lovecraft who had a mad writer of the ‘Necronomicon‘. I would state though that the man who painted this picture,” he tears down the cloth to reveal a painting, “was indeed, as legend goes, off his rocker.”

The painting was of a lady dressed provocatively in red, her strawberry colored lips were the clear centerpiece. Her eyes seemed almost void of a soul, her hair a vast darkness flowing over the corner of the couch she was laying on. 

“This is what is written on the back and as you can see, this is the genuine article from Joseph Leibert. ‘Painting Number 3: ‘ However we know this painting more as, ‘The Lady.’ Before I talk about the specific features, as you may know, this painting has a series of horror stories that associated to it. Even believed by the Vatican to be haunted at one point in time.”

“Long Ago…”

As the legend goes there was a village, quaint and quiet, with only two hundred residence. Joseph had moved there to get out of the city life. He always dreamt of a house overlooking an orchard. His perfect life would be a simplicity he could bask in. Rivaling that dream was a young local who was said to be both a charming and a brilliant painter who would soon become world famous. His name would be forgotten with time but for the sake of the story he shall be called Cliff. 

Cliff worked days as a store keepers assistant. He had recently moved out of his parents’ home and found his own in a back room.

 

One day, he was stocking the front shelves when she walked in. The light from the door hit Cliff’s face, and he was paralyzed because he foolishly allowed the positioning of his head to take it all in. He averted his gaze and all he could see was green discoloration as his eyes tried in vain to adjust to normal. He squinted his eyes closed and heard a series of steps. Click-clack.

He wiped the first dust out of his eyes and saw just legs in broken down shoes. She was a peasant girl, probably a farmer’s daughter, or a poor mans wife. He looked up to her waist, to her stomach, and followed it up to her neckline. Her neck was was bare in front of him. She wore a dress that was worn and raggedy, hanging slightly off the shoulder. The edge of her skin going from her shoulder to her neck; the neck, drifting down towards the top of her chest. Her blue eyes, the color of water, stared at him.  She smiled, softly, a faint smile. 

She was perfect in his eyes. 

They instantly found themselves drawn to each other. While they had little in common other than their common lives, they quickly became inseparable. 

Joseph met her a few days later while setting up his supplies and canvas. The air had begin to cool and a gentle breeze formed pushing his head to see her swimming. Beside the lake was Cliff. He had already begun painting the water, how the currents were moving, and the clouds in the distance. Joseph looked back down, at his blank canvas, and its silence. He had not been getting “the feel” that had been joyfully plaguing him most of his life. 

The closest thing he had to a muse, had died of illness long ago. It was a love from afar, but recently, in his mind she was by his side, creating works of art, guiding his hands and whispering paint colors and their combinations in his ears. He knew he never really heard, saw and felt these things, but they flowed from him freely as the blood of a fresh cut. Two women he had painted previously. Most of his work was landscape and architecture. But the women, the two he had found, had revolutionized everything he knew about art and beauty. 

She came out of the water. Her underdress brashly allowing him to see her curves and waves that molded her body. “She was designed by the hand of God.” That was his words and even from that distance, he could see the water element of her eyes. What caught his attention most was not just the water in her eyes, but the red of her lips as they pursed into a smile.  He reached out his fingers into the air and they lingered, pretending to move with those shapes.

He slammed the door shut on his empty house. Alone, he was always alone. His models use to keep him a quiet company but now he was with his silence. The world was moving without him and he without it. He took his steps and slammed his failed painting against the wall. It merely bounced and came to a stop, so he kicked his foot right through it. Joseph was losing his mind as he allowed himself to imagine cruel voices spinning around him in laughter.

The voices were always laughing. He ran to another room and slammed the door. In front of him, was a cold and silent canvas. He bought it long ago in a foreign flea market. It was being saved for a special occasion. But where was his muse? Where was the soul he wished he could capture in this sheet of fabric and material?

“Come.” He said quietly. He could hardly hear himself. 

“I said come.” This time it was a clear whisper. 

The haunting rectangle was looking back in defiance.

“I need the muse! Give me the Muse!” He was demanding it with every bit of his existence, a hope that his own will would be able to warp reality. If he could call the sky green, it would be green, that was how he wanted of this non painting. 

A tantrum followed. As the day became night he was huddled into a corner. Failure, that was all he could feel. He was an “artist” only by the foolish coincidences that those things he happened to create were considered art. In reality, he was nothing. His only good work was best not his own, but inspired by another source. 

His tears were a strange unwelcome comfort. He hated how they tickled as they brushed down. He hated how he felt like he could not control them. They were let loose and he could not put them back. Art was a strange concept that had given him all he had, and he could not harness it. If only he had chosen a profession. 

The image of Cliff, his rival, a more humble artist but rising quick. His style, the paint strokes were sharp, the edges smooth. They had purpose, and they did not copy what they reproducing, but rather captured the essence; the soul of the subject. 

Critics claimed similarly of Josephs Lieberts work, but even a fool can find abstract art to be genius. Joseph found his mind wanting someone to knock on the front door, give him a reason to leave this void of a room. As he could not will the blank canvas to talk to him, he could not will a stranger to knock on his door. He could not leave the room with thoughts of Cliff’s amazing talent set running in his head, and the new girl he knew that Cliff would immortalize into a masterpiece. 

That girl, he would kill to paint her. 

That was when the canvas answered him. 

“Paint. Me.”

He smiled, and she smiled back.

Three weeks later, a party was being held in Munich. The mayor had bought himself a new piece and wanted to flaunt his charitable donations to the art community. He saw it more as a means to expand his popularity, but these events became more a sanctioned meet and greet for artists and often newer talents would rise up in mass whispers during these gatherings. 

Cliff’s name was being mentioned a lot, and he bought himself the most humble of suits, as he brought his lady with him. To the outside world, they saw her as plain, but Joseph knew better. At this point Cliff had sold two works, which he created with great depth and time over the course of two weeks since he met his new lady. 

Tonight would be Joseph’s night though. What the world did not know was that he had entered three pieces into the gallery auction down below. His best works yet. Ever since he found the Muse, his talent had reached its peak. But it was all a lie. Every painting he was going to unveil tonight would be a piece to an argument in three acts. The goal, was to get the lady to be his model, so he could capture her soul. 

Cliff and Joseph found themselves meeting in front of the Mayor’s new “whatever it was.” Their contact came first as a collaborative effort of berating a child like drawing of a vast canyon on an expensive parchment that could have been put to better use. Put in easier terms, it was s**t. 

“To think I still have to work a day job.” Cliff gave his remarks.

“Heard the guy made enough tonight to build a house for his child.” Joseph had responded. 

“This should not be allowed to reproduce. The growth of humanity as a whole has been infected by this existing.” Cliff had always been good with sarcasm to Joseph’s liking. Never have either talked bad about each other’s work to the other. Joseph associated it more so that locals stick up for their own. Joseph rather though would be known as the only talent from their little town, not a second runner. 

“I heard you have been working hard.” Joseph looked to Cliff, see if he could see weakness in his rival.  Cliff shrugged it off, a wannabe act of humility. Cliff was for the most part humble but when he went on his creative strings, his confidence would often be noticeable by those around him. Joseph knew this look all too well. It would be a lie if Joseph claimed he did not have the same affliction of smug when he knew he was working on a good piece. 

“My work is my work. But yes, I am trying to circulate some new pieces.” 

“I got two being auctioned off tonight,” Joseph responded.

“I’ll let you have a look sometime next week at what I have been working with.”

“Does it have anything to do with your new catch? Got yourself a new muse?”

Cliff went red, his skin flushed so easily when it came to girls.

“What about you? You said you have two being auctioned tonight. You got something at home that you are not showing us?”

A dark feeling hit Cliff as Joseph responded with one question. “Your new friend, would she model for me?”

The quaint small village, once so peaceful was now under attack by a series of grizzly deaths. Cliff had begun to drink himself to sleep on a nightly basis. The woman who had once been perfect, was coming to see him less and less. Joseph would stand in awe as the Muse continued to direct his hand and his painting was becoming more lush and full of life with each passing day. 

There was one problem though; the lips. They were pale. Growing more white and ash by the second. Those beautiful ruby blood lips were a disaster. Not at all like the object he was painting, the soul he wished to capture. 

“Paint me” the Muse said. 

Joseph could see the figure of the woman, laying down in a beautiful red dress just stare into his soul. She winked at him.

“But, I…” He was trying to argue that no matter how perfect his model, the lips could not obtain the proper redness to reflect her soul.

“I am yours as long as you keep painting me. I will give you the entire world.” He felt her arm come forth from the canvas and run her fingers through the back of his hair. 

“Yes.” He just stared blankly into space as she kept petting him. He was hers and he was grateful for the pleasure. 

The door opened and the lady walked in. 

More time passed. Ten victims had been tallied, all young, all beautiful. Cliff had quit his job, burned his old art work, and would no longer take visits from her as she would come to him. The last communication anyone had of him, Joseph had sent Cliff a draft of his final work. There was his girl, captured more then just by accuracy but into the essense of a being he would never posess. His life was meaningless as was his quest to bring forth the beauty of this world into paint. 

It was now the last day of Joseph Leibert’s painting. He was doing a final set of touch ups and was waiting for Katrina to come. What a needless name. He looked back at the imperfect work he had dedicated the last few weeks of his life. Katrina while simple loved every moment of it. She seemed like she was born to model for others. 

The picture however had its horrific flaw. The lips, they wouldn’t stay red! The muse would often come from her painting, and wrap him in her arms to comfort him, and she told him, today would be the last. All he had to do was finish the last details. 

“Soon.” She said as he composed himself. “Soon.”

She went back into her painting and a beautiful operetta number began to fill the air. He was always a fan of the classics. As he begun to sway left to right, his head moving with the crashing waves to the notes and motion, the door was knocked.

“Mr. Liebert. I am here.”

“Coming Lady Katrina.”

The music instantly stopped as he put down his utensils and went for the wooden door.

Katrina stood in front of him wearing a more simple set of clothes, those from the street. “You sure you don’t need me to wear that dress?” She asked coyishly. He knew she liked to dress up. However for the finale, all he cared about was fine tuning the facial features and her hair. 

He guided her by the hand to the couch. The sun was setting in just the right position for the shading. 

“Should I smile? Make a silly face?” Katrina asked.

Joseph didn’t care for her musings. Back when it all started he enjoyed her little bits of personality but more and more, she may have been a child playing and talking with herself. It was not her overly energetic voice he sought. This lady was just a vessel. 

“Right there is fine,” Joseph talked her down.

She took an inhale, and at once a strange serenity hit her face. She was in her element. It was perhaps the only thing about her that fascinated him. He sat down in front of the painting. The chair had a little extra comfort than normal. The brush felt a little extra light. It hymned in his hand. 

He waited for the muse to speak. 

The day turned into evening and before the sun finished its set he finished.

But something was wrong. The lips went from a perfect blush  to a see through pink. No matter how many times in the past he had retouched it, the lips would not stay red.

The girl in the painting began to cry. “Stop it please”, Joseph pleaded.

“Make me perfect.” The woman in the painting looked at him with wanting eyes. 

“Okay.”

Katrina could not understand this conversation he was having. “Is everything alright?”

“Blood, I need blood.” Joseph Leibert looked to his subject.

“What?” Katrina looked back curiously.

Joseph composed himself. “You see, blood can keep its red color the longest, more so than any paint, and for me to accurately capture your soul, I need to polish these dull lips with ruby blood.”

She did not have an answer for that. She just stood there.

“You see, the blood of all those other girls would only liven the lips for a moment because they don’t fit the piece. To make this peace perfect….” Joseph stood up. Behind Joseph, she could see a faint figure, with sharp teeth, a hint of red eyes, and horns. It had a female figure as it looked like it put a hand on Josephs shoulders. 

She wanted to run but her soul was bounded by the painting. She could feel herself chained to the couch in which he had painter her to. He walked to her, step by step. The shadow of the demon growing stronger and stronger. She wanted to scream. Joseph knew so, because they all wanted to scream. 

He grabbed the comforting top of her head. He let his fingers feel the integrity of her hair and the mass collapsed under the weight, down to her scalp. He got his grip, knowing he could move  her head and neck side to side. There was no need to look at her eyes. He grabbed the pallete knife. 

He slit her throat. 

Katrina’s blood sang songs of ecstasy as it was properly applied to the pail lips of the painting. They had found their home. At long last he had done what he always had dreamt of doing, he captured the soul of an individual onto the canvas and it was good. The muse standing next to him simply turned his neck just a little and gave him a demonic kiss.

“Cindy, can you stay and help me put these materials back in the art department closet?” Proffesor Brown asked.

Cindy was always a people pleaser. Plus her crush on the Professor probably helped her decision as well. “Could you grab those?” He asked her. She went to the front table where he left his lecture notes for the class. 

Cindy sifted through them and saw a picture of Joseph Leibert. “Was he really a serial killer?”

“So the legend goes. Do you believe it?”

Cindy shook her head no. To believe he was a serial killer would also mean that she would have to believe in the other elements of the story. 

“And what of his rival? The other painter?” She asked. 

He shrugged, “I don’t know if he really ever existed. A lot of the story is legend. They do say a lot of legends are based on some level of facts though. I think it too sad that there is this idea of another with the same artistic power as Joseph Leibert but that he was forgotten by time. It happens though all too often.”

“So what does legend say happened after?”

“Aparently, he simply shut himself away from society and died of illness alone. 

He grabbed the painting and they left the class room.

They were walking down the hall when she began, “So Professor, I don’t know how to say this, but…” she recalled a strange look in the professors eyes as she sat in class. She felt herself feel desired, and it was a strange yet slightly embarrassing comfort. 

“Yes, I did want to get you alone, if you don’t mind.”

She instantly couldn’t think strait thoughts. This was real, not a fantasy. As she smiled, she felt like she couldn’t breathe. They came to the art department door and she felt herself fearful yet having a deadly anticipation for the future moments she knew were about to come. 

“So professor, did you hear about the rumors that some girls went missing?” She was trying to make conversation not sure how to fill the silence. 

“They probably just dropped out. A lot of people find that college is too tough for them.”

“Yeah, but it just reminds me of the story you told in class.”

The room was antique looking, not a hint of modern technology anywhere. It also felt strangely devoid of life. The middle of the room was a wide open space. It would have been fit for dancing, if the two wished to dance. She smiled at this thought. She saw though he was not smiling. Professor Brown simply put the painting against an easel and once again unfolded the cover to reveal itself in its spending glory.

No longer did Painting Number 3, or The Lady, look like a work of genius or beauty. It looked strange. Nothing had change, every line, curve, and color was exactly the same, but Cindy didn’t know how she felt about it.

“Tell me, before we put the rest of the stuff in the closet, what do you think of this painting. Use everything I taught you about color, contrast, and even background to critique it.” 

Cindy wanted to see something nice. She wanted to see a happy story. She wanted to see a girl of great beauty laying on a couch smiling with strawberry colored lips. Something inside of her was telling her otherwise. It was fear, the same kind when she used to be alone at home for the first time.   

“It is a beautiful work but…”

“But the smile. It is the smile right?” The Professor asked in a sigh of defeat.

“The smile is kind of creepy.” She responded.

“So it’s not a trick of the light in here. I was afraid of this.” The Professor slightly began to pace. He then added, “I was really hoping it was just me. That such a tragedy could befall such a beauty. The color is fading…”

She didn’t have time to understand as he directed her to the closet and gave her the key. 

She opened the door.

The smell was the first thing that hit her. The dead bodies were about six in number. They had been discarded. It wasn’t supplies he put into his own personal closet in the antiqued art department.

The last thing Cindy felt was her windpipe collapse under an immense pressure. She likely blacked out before she actually died. 

Professor Brown took out a crude box cutter, slit what was left of her throat, and painted those pale lips red with blood. He had to make The Lady happy. 

Author's Note

Please give honest feedback. This was taken from a chapter of a novel I am working on but feel this is a strong stand alone story. Losely based on a script I wrote that had a different ultimate direction. Thank you for your time.