It hung on the wall, surrounded by the works of the masters in gilded
frames. It sat in between the Mona Lisa and The Starry Night, almost as a
breaker between the styles. No one knew what to do with it of course; it was outside
of their realms of expertise. They spent weeks trying to work out who had
inspired this art; art that left the greatest critics scratching their heads in
confusion.
The canvas was a virgin white, the crisscross weave clearly visible to
anyone looking. The two metre expanse of white was like a magnet, drawing
attention away from the classics to this one piece, looking to see why such a
plain painting hung next to the work of the irreproachable masters. It was
clearly more than a simple white blankness to be worth the prestige it was
offered. Finally, when they stood so close that they could almost smell the
canvas, they saw it. An off-center tiny black dot the size of a pinhead,
delicately marring the perfect base.
In its early days, people had reached out to brush their hands across the
canvas trying to dislodge the speck of dust. Some blowing gently at the canvas
as if to dislodge a speck of dust before they realized it was a part of the artwork.
A small acrylic dot demanding all of the attention of the people who would look
at it.
There had been a man who had seen it, who had studied the image, taken
photo’s and prints and scans. He had written an essay that had the art world in
frenzy. He’d likened the dot to a mark on a human soul; said that the controversial
painter ‘Anon’ had encompassed the way even the cleanest soul needed only one mark. One mark and it would be the only thing a person would ever look at. It was a great theory,
a relevant theory, people wrote stories based on it, they argued against it,
positing ideas more and more far fetching. Calls were sent out in an almost
compulsive need to find the artist. To discover once and for all what meaning
was intended by such a blatant disregard for style and propriety. The gallery
curator harassed and questioned as to how he’d gotten the piece.
No replies ever came, nor final decision concluded. It hung on the wall, blissfully
unaware of the controversy it caused. It shone in the lights angled to bring
forward the tiny black point, to illuminate the mystery the world saw. It wasn’t
until closing, when the cleaner came forward to turn off the lights, that the
painting ever saw its creator. An old man never noticed, underpaid and underappreciated;
a man completely ignorant about art and snubbed for his ignorance. A man who’d
set the world on edge with his one tiny speck of knowledge.
The world only needed to think something’s important for it to become the
work of a visionary mind.
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