Nicol – Pavratelli looked out of the window that faced the bay. His model sat lazily in the soft chair almost asleep<\/p>\n
The artist had not worked for almost an hour<\/p>\n
He just stared at the vivid waters of the bay totally ignoring the village girl. Her outline filled the canvas but it was not full<\/p>\n
Nicol -Pavratelli was holding a calf notebook. On the first page he had written:<\/p>\n
Yellows<\/b><\/em><\/p>\n Brilliant Yellow<\/i><\/p>\n Neapolitan Yellow<\/i><\/p>\n Chrome Yellow <\/i><\/p>\n Yellow Orchre<\/em><\/p>\n Siena Earth <\/i><\/p>\n The breeze that was coming through the open window was chilled although the sun was high. At that moment it was passing through a cloud whose shape suggested the county of Cornwall<\/p>\n Nicol \u2013 Pavratelli gestured for the model to resume her position. She was eating an apple taken from a display an act of defience the artist ignored<\/p>\n He asked her for nothing but her idle pose<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In the bay a small sailboat moved rapidly away from the shore. It was the only sailboat to be seen<\/p>\n The sailboat was called Victoria and was owned by Nicol -Pavratelli. It was crewed by his wife who liked to sail in the nude<\/p>\n But as the breeze was stiff she was wearing a yellow shirt and faded jeans. In her pocket there was a handwritten note which read:<\/p>\n Reds <\/i><\/b><\/p>\n Vermilion<\/i><\/p>\n Red Ochre<\/i><\/p>\n Burnt Siena<\/i><\/p>\n Crimson Lake<\/i><\/p>\n Carmine Lake<\/i><\/p>\n Burnt Lake <\/i><\/p>\n The artists wife was called Siena although this was not her birth name<\/p>\n <\/p>\n On the jetty on the opposite side of the bay, the mother of the village girl was mending a fishing net owned by her husband<\/p>\n She too had modelled \u00a0for the artist and on that very day many miles away her portrait was being sold by Nicol \u2013 Pavratelli\u2019s Romanian dealer<\/p>\n The painting was called<\/p>\n The Fisherman\u2019s Wife <\/i><\/p>\n She looked at the artist\u2019s house where her daughter was posing for a painting which would be called<\/p>\n The Fisherman\u2019s Daughter <\/i><\/p>\n <\/p>\n As the sailboat crossed the bay the artists wife was reading stories by Sholem Aleichem. <\/i>She had found the book in her husband\u2019s studio. Inside it cover was written:<\/p>\n Greens<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n Veronese Green<\/i><\/p>\n Emerald Green<\/i><\/p>\n Terre Verte <\/i><\/p>\n Nicol -Pavratelli had asked her to buy his paints as he was running low because as always he applied them too thickly<\/p>\n He said that this enhanced the light<\/p>\n His wife painted with water as her brush was thinner<\/p>\n She was a delicate artist<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Four hours passed, but nobody had noticed the loss. The fisherman\u2019s wife was still mending his torn nets. From the jetty she could see the artist\u2019s wife on her return voyage<\/p>\n In the sailboat towards the stern a bag full of paints lay partially hidden under a spare piece of sailcloth<\/p>\n Only the black paint leaked and was staining the wood around it<\/p>\n His wife was singing a song that she had heard in the village but did not know its name<\/p>\n She threw the leaking tube overboard for the fish to use<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Nicol-Pavratelli had worked without a break for each of the hours. Yet the feminine canvas still seemed naked to him but he did not despair as this often happened<\/p>\n He had let the model go two hours previously as she had complained of cramp and she was now swimming in the shallow waters of the bay ignoring the coolness of the early water<\/p>\n She was being watched by a young boy who was sketching her. His name was Paul and he was the son of the artist and his wife<\/p>\n Working mainly in charcoal, his style resembled that of his father although his hands were as delicate as his mothers who he could see from his vantage sailing towards the house<\/p>\n On the last page of the pad that he was using his father had written:<\/p>\n Blues<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n Cobalt Blue<\/i><\/p>\n Ultramarine<\/i><\/p>\n Prussian Blue <\/i><\/p>\n Noir de Peche<\/i><\/p>\n As she emerged from her swim, the artist\u2019s son enjoyed the full figure of the fisherman\u2019s daughter. He sketched quickly as she walked towards her clothes which were hanging from a tree<\/p>\n He would show his sketches to his father as he knew that his father considered the boys talent to superior to his own<\/p>\n <\/p>\n That evening, the artist, his wife and son were seated at a shabby wooden table. The charcoal sketches had been praised and were pinned against a hanging door<\/p>\n The fisherman\u2019s daughter was dancing in the evening breeze as the trio ate their meal. The artist\u2019s wife had brought back fish freshly caught by the fisherman which tasted of the sea<\/p>\n As she poured him a glass of wine Nicol-Pavratelli looked up at the decaying day and wondered where the Cornish cloud was. He imagined it over Africa on its journey south but knew that only the Yiddish book knew the answer<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Nicol – Pavratelli looked out of the window that faced the bay. His model sat lazily in the soft chair almost asleep The artist had not worked for almost an hour He just stared at the vivid waters of the bay totally ignoring the village girl. Her outline filled the canvas but it was not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/918"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=918"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/918\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}