The Islanders

Gannten Asemant FRAGRANT SPRING

GANNTEN ASEMANT is one of the smaller islands in the Gannten Chain. Its existence would barely be known outside the Chain if it were not for one remarkable event, which was a personal appearance by the artist Dryd Bathurst.

The occasion was a retrospective exhibition of his works, in which many of his smaller pieces were planned to be included, while four or five of his epic oils would also be hung. The gallery set the date for the private view and sent invitations to a select number of guests. Although there were not many of them they did live in many different parts of the Archipelago. Because of the distances involved, the invitations went out a long way ahead of the event. The select few were all known admirers of Bathurst’s work, regular patrons or representatives of major galleries, or his professional acquaintances and colleagues. Because of Bathurst’s itinerant ways, and his habit of arriving unannounced and departing in haste, few of these people had previously met him in person.

The press and visual media were not invited to the show. Bathurst had a lifelong aversion to publicity, both for himself and for his work. He never allowed tV cameras anywhere near him or his paintings, so no one present was expecting to see any of the television channels there. However, the almost total absence of print or internet journalists was surprising to some. It implied that Bathurst was entering a new and perhaps contradictory period of his life. The exhibition itself suggested he was seeking acceptance. The absence of the media indicated he wanted to shun fame.

In fact, one reporter did turn up, having blagged a ticket from another invitee. The journalist was a young trainee called Dant Willer, who was working on the local newspaper, the Ganntenian News. As events turned out, this young reporter’s presence transformed what was intended to be a private party into an incident with many consequences.

The gallery was a small and until then insignificant one, called the Blue Lagoon. Before Bathurst’s arrival on the island it was known only for local paintings by enthusiasts and amateurs, sold to tourists. For the gallery owner, a man called Jel Toomer, it was a genuine scoop, because at this time Bathurst’s reputation, personal as well as professional, was a constant talking point.

His distinction as a painter of symbolic or portentous landscapes was never higher, with wealthy collectors practically fighting with each other to buy his huge canvases. In addition, there was a veritable industry of theoretical, analytical and academic papers attempting to unravel the enigmas perceived in the paintings.

His wider influence was also felt in the work of scores of young or emerging artists who were eager to identify themselves as socius Bathurst Imagists.

He was also routinely denigrated as an exhibitionist, a dauber, a plagiarist, a populist, a coxcomb, an obscurantist and an opportunist. Much else was said — privately, but in a more energetically vindictive and heartfelt way — by a string of husbands, fathers, fiancés and brothers, on a large number of islands throughout the Archipelago.

Dryd Bathurst’s celebrity was not then wholly for his work. Endless tittle-tattle and gossip surrounded the more public aspects of his private life, filling the popular tabloids and celebrity magazines, which otherwise had no discernible interest in art. Stories about Bathurst’s exploits, and alleged exploits, were told, re-told and endlessly embellished.

Photographs of him were rare — in fact, there was only one known to exist, taken years before, when he was an art student. It was still used to identify him: he appeared as a tall young man of slender build, narrow-hipped, with a chiselled face and lustrous fair hair. He looked sullen and aggressive, but also vulnerable.

Bathurst and his aides took extraordinary measures to disguise or conceal his features when he was travelling around. Travelling around was something he did almost constantly, of course. Should some enterprising photographer manage to obtain a candid shot with a long lens, or when Bathurst was caught unawares, then the painter would use any means at his disposal to suppress it: invocation of privacy laws or physical threats were instantly uttered, but most often he would resort to his vast wealth to buy the picture. Naturally, all this heightened the intensity of the attention around him.

It followed too that people were curious about his physical appearance. His enemies said that he had grown old, put on weight, that his flowing locks had thinned or fallen out, or that some cuckolded husband or lover had managed to disfigure him.

None of this was true, as the chosen ones who were allowed into the private view on Gannten Asemant immediately discovered. Although he was no longer the fragile youth blessed with classical beauty, Bathurst’s body had filled out while maintaining a look of fitness and agility. His face remained aquiline and attractively angular, his fair hair flowed about his shoulders. He moved with feline grace and carried himself with an aura of manly strength. Fine lines of maturity that were forming around his eyes only emphasized the sensuality of his features.

His force of personality was extraordinary. Everyone present felt acutely aware of him, as if he was exerting a magnetic attraction. People could not help staring at him or trying to edge closer to him, eager to listen in on the few conversations he engaged in.

The temptations of the bounty aside, Bathurst was one of the most photogenic men they had ever seen. In order to remove temptation, all photographic equipment and cellphones were temporarily confiscated and secured in a guarded room along the corridor. The guests had to content themselves with gawping, and the lesser satisfactions of being able to tell their friends they had at least been there.

Even allowing for Bathurst’s celebrity the canvases were still the dominant presence. The five large paintings, all completed comparatively recently and therefore unseen even by most of his entourage until this event, were hung on the gallery walls. The two largest were placed one at each end, the other three being hung side by side on the wall facing the window.

No catalogue was prepared by the gallery, so none of the paintings was identified. Was this Bathurst’s own wish, or just a mistake by the gallery? No one seemed to know. However, we do know what paintings there were, because the enterprising young reporter from the News managed to elicit the titles from Bathurst or one of his close aides, and diligently recorded them.

With hindsight, we therefore have the remarkable information that this was the only known occasion when all five canvases of Bathurst’s HAVOC SEQUENCE were displayed together.

Final Hour of the Relief Ship was on one of the end walls. Opposite, at the further end of the gallery, stood The Breakers of the Earth. Arrayed along the wall between them were the three paintings which today are recognized as supreme even amongst Bathurst’s supreme canvases: Virtuous Magnificence and Decadent Hope, Willing Slaves of God and Terrain of a Dying Hero.

The mere thought of these five masterpieces being in one place at the same time still has the capacity to take the breath away.

However, even the presence of the five Havoc paintings did not provide the surpassing moment. Bathurst had promised to display several of his smaller paintings. Four of them were hung there, quietly filling the available spaces on the walls. Dazzled by the Havocs, the guests might have been excused if they had not immediately noticed the others. But there they were, four canvases placed unobtrusively at eye-level on a slightly uneven and not especially clean gallery wall.

Two of them were sketches for details in the Havoc Sequence: one of these was the head of the sea serpent from Final Hour of the Relief Ship. The other was the body of the naked woman about to be consumed by a burning tide of fast-moving lava, from Willing Slaves of God. Either of these so-called sketches would stand alone as a crowning achievement for any other painter. In particular, the draft of the serpent’s head (which was in fact a full-sized canvas painted in oils) gave an astonishing insight into the close attention Bathurst paid to detail. With these two canvases set beside the ultimate paintings, it was possible to discern the artistry and technique that had been demanded of the artist.

Then there were the other two.

The first was The Shroud, which was being displayed openly for the first and perhaps the only time. The Shroud was a framed canvas of about fifty by sixty centimetres. The artist was depicted in such detail that it was almost a shock to see it. It was immediately obvious that it was based on the famous photograph, the one everyone had seen: the posture, the clothes, the facial expression — all were identical. The only difference was that Bathurst had painted himself older: the youth had been supplanted by the man. There was no hidden message in the painting itself. The guests could turn from a regard of the painting to see the man himself, standing a short distance away, almost the twin of his own creation.

The last of the smaller canvases stood out from the others, from the havoc, the shroud, the ever-constant sense that the artist was directly or indirectly placing himself in every image. This one was different. It was a portrait of a woman and the title was E. M. The Singer of Airs. One by one the guests came to this painting, stared absorbedly at it, apparently paralysed by its intensity.

All, men and women alike, were disconcerted and seemingly aroused by its fierce erotic clarity. Many stood before it for several minutes, neglecting the charismatic artist whose presence dominated the rest of the room, reluctant to move away, or to yield their place in front of the painting to another person. Some seemed embarrassed, others shocked. One man turned away, blushing. No one could ignore it, no one could deny its power.

At the time of this gallery view it’s doubtful if anyone there had any idea who the sitter had been, who ‘E. M.’ might be. Now we know that it is almost certainly a portrait of Esphoven Muy. This is thanks to the detective work of Dant Willer, the young reporter. It was Willer who through later research into the Kammeston Archive was to establish the link between Muy and Bathurst.

It is also through Willer that we have a permanent, reliable recording of this painting. A tiny digital camera, concealed behind the lapel of Willer’s jacket, snatched five images of the painting of Muy. Like most of the people there that day, Willer was sensually overcome by the impact of the portrait.

Without the Willer frames the painting of Muy would never have been seen by anyone who was not at the Blue Lagoon. Those tiny low-resolution images, digitally enhanced and combined, have been the basis of every reproduction that has appeared since.

The painting of Esphoven Muy had never been exhibited until that day, and it has not been seen since. The Havocs were quickly reserved for collectors and national galleries, the sketches for the Havocs went to a museum on Derril, Large Home. The Shroud was not for sale, and neither was The Singer of Airs.

That loving portrait of Muy, an insight into Bathurst’s past and his deeper self, his talent never before seen to such minimal but brilliant effect, remained the property of the artist. For that short time at the gallery view, a woman was briefly seen through the artist’s eyes, a beauteous woman with wind troubling her hair and her clothes, and unspent passion troubling her eyes.

Bathurst and his entourage departed quietly from Gannten Asemant a few days later. It was never revealed where he was going, but Kammeston’s biography suggests that it was to Salay, or one of the other islands in that group. Bathurst’s life was destined to be long and he had many more islands to visit. The proprietor of the Blue Lagoon, Jel Toomer, became a wealthy man on his commissions from the exhibition. He donated the gallery building and all its remaining contents to the Gannten Seigniory, left the island and has not been heard of since.

The Blue Lagoon is still in existence and is open daily to visitors. Most of the paintings Bathurst exhibited that day are displayed in the building, but obviously only in reproduction, and in some cases fairly poor reproduction.

Dant Willer continued to work for the Ganntenian News until the period of apprenticeship was complete, but then moved away to Muriseay.

Ferry services to the Gannten Chain have improved in recent years, but it remains a remote part of the Archipelago. Hotel accommodation is not available at international standards, but inexpensive pensions can be found near the gallery and are recommended on that basis.

There are no shelterate laws anywhere in the Gannten Chain, but havenic rules should be observed.

Currency: Ganntenian credit, Archipelagian simoleon.