“ART,” Mildred said. “It means ‘art.’ Simple as that. Pictures and stuff.”
J.B. tutted his disappointment. “Paintings! And I hoped for artillery.”
DESPITE HIS REGRET, the Armorer was as enthusiastic as any of them once they entered the rooms and started to look at the pictures that hung there.
Each of the friends had his or her own particular favorites, but there was a general agreement that certain artists struck a common chord for all of them.
“Georgia O’Keefe,” Krysty said. “The way she captures the light down in the Southwest is wonderful. And that early picture of the lights of old Newyork. Magical.”
“She resided down in Abiquiu in New Mexico,” Doc said. “Lived to a great age, but went blind toward the end of her life. Amazing, amazing woman. Look at the one called Black Mesa . Marvelous.”
“I liked those sea pictures,” Ryan commented. “Winslow Homer. Way he showed light on water. I’ve never ever seen real famous paintings like this. Thought they’d mostly been destroyed in the skydark times.”
Doc was transfigured with ecstasy. “Happened in Europe during the big Second War. Hid treasures in mines and places like that. Good to see that someone here in Tennessee had enough sense to save these pictures. Miraculous.”
Jak had paused a long time in front of a reproduction of a picture by Andrew Wyeth. “Named after my wife,” he said. “Called Christina’s World .”
It showed a young disabled woman lying on a sloping field, staring away from the painter toward a group of buildings farther up the hill.
“Like a frozen moment,” Mildred stated. “Bit like that other guy we all liked.”
“Hoppy?” Ryan queried.
“Hopper. Edward Hopper.” Mildred pulled at his sleeve to lead him back into the middle room, standing with him in front of a trio of Hopper pictures.
One showed a sunlit house with the draperies drawn across the second-floor windows. There was the feeling that someone was about to walk by or had just vanished from a window.
The second painting was of an office in a city, with a woman seated at a typewriter and another woman holding a mug of coffee, neither looking at the other.
The third Hopper featured an elderly man sitting in a canvas chair in the garden of a mansion overlooking a deep blue ocean. Once again there was that odd, timeless feeling of an event trapped forever in amber.
Single pictures had attracted each of them individually. Jak loved some capering little men in bright colors, but the label was missing from it; J.B. was taken by a print of an electric chair by Andy Warhol, though the others found it ghoulish; Krysty admired a geometric pattern by Frank Stella; and one of Mildred’s favorites was of a stark industrial landscape, painted with great attention to detail by Charles Sheeler.
Doc was struck speechless by a magnificent Western painting by Frank Russell, depicting a man trapped on a ledge by a wounded cougar, high in the Sierras; Ryan was dazzled by the paintings, though they had obviously been hung in great haste, with no attempt to worry about alignment or lighting. One or two of the artists were people that he’d vaguely heard of, but he hadn’t been prepared for the richness of color and texture. Even painters he didn’t much care for had undeniable talent.
But his own personal favorite, which nobody else much cared for, was a gray picture of a misty sea with a bridge in the background, by John Sloan. It seemed to capture a feeling of isolation and loneliness that spoke directly to him.
“Shame we can’t somehow take the pictures with us,” Mildred said. “Still, just seeing them all like this has been truly fabulous.”
“I had never imagined that such a collection of treasures still existed anywhere in this blighted Deathlands.” Doc took a last look into the nearest room. “So rich.”
J.B. cleared his throat. “Still would’ve preferred it to have been artillery. But the art was a good surprise.”
“Hungry.” Jak was surprised when the others laughed. “Am,” he insisted. “Real hungry.”
Ryan slapped the teenager on the shoulder. “You and me both, Jak.”
“We going out the redoubt now?”