Attic Ward

Sleeping Gypsy Girl

It's happening again. Strange and soundless incantations seep through the cold stone, charging these hushed halls. The still air stirs with otherworldly anticipation. Some medieval work of art, infused with spells and wrought with alchemical gold leaf, must be arising, although I've never found it. Or, maybe it's the unearthly charisma of a cursed portrait, like Dorian Gray's, crafted with a dark elixir. Only, this magic isn't confined to a single painting or the soul of a single man. This magic—this magic is taking over the National Gallery of Art!

Can't you feel it?

It's the paintings. Some numinous energy has awakened them. But paintings don't stir from slumber like fossils and relics, shaking off cobwebs and dust. No. When paintings come to life, vivid worlds expand from their canvases to blend, melt, and fuse with reality; they forge a sublime alloy, a breathtaking kaleidoscope.

It happens only at night, when I'm here in the National Gallery, alone...

I'm standing before The Sleeping Gypsy—a mystical Surrealist painting by Henri Rousseau of a gypsy woman asleep in the desert sands beneath the moonlight. Suddenly, a hot, dry breath of air sweeps past me. I know what's coming, so I hurry to take refuge in one of the Impressionist galleries where the paintings are bright and colorful and less intimidating than these Surrealist dreamscapes.

Tonight, I also steer clear of the halls filled with Abstract animations, Cubist distortions, glowing Fauvist colors, and strident Constructivist propaganda. I'm looking for something earthly to ground me. Even though I typically favor the works of Post-Impressionists like Van Gogh's Starry Night or Munch's The Scream, I'm not in the mood for their hallucinatory angst, either; they liquefy the air and veil the light until all the nearby paintings disappear into their fluid reach. I've learned that certain paintings—the more potent masterpieces—hold sway over the others when this unexplained enchantment takes over the museum.

For example, Leonardo da Vinci's Ginevra de' Benci freely wanders the conjoined worlds like a glowing goddess, and Rubens's Pan Reclining—let's just say that Pan the goat god turns out to be sixteen feet tall and he reeks; I can smell him even before I feel the impact tremors of his approaching hooves.

I slip into my favorite Impressionist gallery, and there it is, what I've come for: Monet's Japanese Footbridge. By now, the transformation is well underway. I step lightly onto the bridge and stop at the center of its blue span. The water lilies bob gently in their pond below. I can hear the birds and frogs, and the long chirr of cicadas. I breathe deeply to take in the sweet, intoxicating scent of summer. Somewhere in the distance, cathedral bells toll.

Outside the sphere of the footbridge, chaos swirls as other paintings come to life and fuse to the edges of this one. On another night I might plunge into that chaos to see where it takes me, but tonight I seek solace; and I've found it, here in the heart of this profound work by Monet.

When I'm immersed like this, in a painting, I can feel the artist at work; I can follow the motion of his hands—how he's prepared his canvas and palette, rendered shadow and light, employed contrast and hue, juxtaposed shapes and lines, manipulated space and motion, built layer upon layer, brushstroke by painstaking brushstroke, until it happens: his vision leaps to life!

My eyes flutter open. I'm shivering. It's dark. I look at the clock. 7:00 a.m. Time to get ready for work.