warning: no sexual content whatsoever.
The Queen of
Yellow
© 2012
amanda@amandaearl.com
2021 words
"It is true that to attain the
high yellow that I attained last summer, I really had to be pretty well strung
up. The artist is a man with his work to do."
Arles,
February, 1888, "Dear Theo, The Autobiography of Vincent Van
Gogh."
Vincent lived in the French town of
Arles in a little yellow house. There was something about the colour he felt
drawn to. Glorious and bursting with energy, it gave him the power to create. Whenever
Vincent dipped his brush into the brightness on his palette, it was as if he
could feel the hum of its warmth in his bones. The warm yellow vibration
travelled along his body, much as a note plucked on a guitar travels along the
string. For Vincent yellow ebbed and flowed like a wave of warmth and sound and
energy and euphoria.
Unbeknownst to Vincent, his
fascination with the bright colour had attracted the attention of Flavia, the
Queen of Yellow.
At the birth of the planet we
know as Earth, meteors full of elements, including uranium and magnesium fell
to form the ground. Meteorites tumbled into newly formed bodies of water,
fields and caves. Over time the minerals mixed with water and soil. It was in
one such place, a clay cave thick with deposits of yellow ocher, that Flavia
was born.
Flavia lay dormant in the dark
most of the time and came alive only in the glow of the illuminated lanterns of
cave explorers, the sulphur of a match strike or the occasional ray of sunlight
that found its way into her cave.
Once in a great while, she
received the occasional visitor, perhaps a royal emissary from the Court of
Colour, which reigned over the dark caves and regulated the use of dyes,
minerals and elements, but for the most part she was stuck in the cave alone,
which made her lonely. This loneliness was relieved by the rare visits,
especially by bees whose language of tail-shaking and weaving she could
understand.
It is true that a bee would not
normally be drawn to the dark, sunless environment of a cave. In Flavia's cave
there was nothing edible but bananas and fungi, and certainly no flowers for
the bees to pollinate; however, thanks to the queen's yellow glow, the cave
gave off an ultraviolet light, which resembled to the bees a field of dandelions
replete with pollen and nectar.
When they realized that Flavia
was no field of dandelions, they were angry and disappointed at first but soon
Flavia's honeyed tones calmed them down. They grew to love her because she
listened to them. They brought her the sweetest honey from their hives, and
presented her with gifts of saffron pollen on their feet. One day they brought
her news of the yellow house. She decided to visit.
Journeys for Flavia were
difficult to endure. She could travel on the dusty particles of sunlight's
rays, but if she lingered too long and the sun began to set, she would become
dust herself. She derived energy from the light and from the colour yellow.
Whenever she touched it or saw it, she grew stronger and more able to withstand
the arduous excursions from her cave into the world.
As she travelled above fields of
honeysuckle and ironweed, people couldn't see her, but were suddenly overcome
with a feeling of euphoria so intense that they stopped whatever they were
doing and embarked on a creative task they had been longing to do for their
entire lives. Farmers sang opera. Milk maids beat the pails with rhythmic
prowess as if they had been drummers all their lives. Politicians became poets,
and bakers turned into accomplished contortionists and acrobats.
I am sure you have heard of
alchemy, the mysterious and elusive art of creating gold. Flavia was alchemical. When she arrived on her
cadmium breeze, she brightened the lives of people who spent most of their time
in darkness. The Queen of Yellow's euphoric glow turned mere mortals into
artists. William Blake's fire came from Flavia. Michelangelo's frescoed
ceilings of angels were born from his contact with the golden light filtering
in to the windows of the Sistine Chapel.
But Flavia became very jealous. Living
alone so long hadn't contributed to great social skills. Not until Kyanos, the
King of Blue, wandered into her cave one night. Kyanos, who was a known rogue,
but also a charmer, enchanted Flavia and was charmed in turn by her radiant
golden locks, her soft buttercup skin, her bright intelligence and wit. The
Queen of Yellow and the King of Blue became lovers. Their love making was rich
and verdant, lush as green meadows, sparkling as emeralds.
This was all very wonderful until
the White Maiden arrived, ethereal and wispy as smoke from a blank country, not
knowing her origins or her name. Kyanos was enchanted with the fine China boned
creature the moment he set eyes on her. Soon he abandoned green pleasures in
favour of turquoise delights. The King of Blue wasn't true at all, but a fickle
cad.
It got to the point where The
Queen of Yellow could no longer stand to see either colour. It didn't help that white was the be all and
end all of colour, the foundation upon which all other colours are based. This
drove Flavia mad.
If she discovered evidence of the
king's presence, a liberally spread lapis lazuli or a sudden spray of
cornflower blue in a field of golden wheat, she would take back all the yellow
she had bestowed upon the people, turning them morose and returning them to
their labours.
Vincent had a servant who was
also a beekeeper. Like Flavia, the beekeeper was able to understand the bees, who rewarded him
with secrets, including the knowledge of the existence and impending arrival of
Flavia, the Queen of Yellow. Bees are not known for their loyalty or discretion.
In Vincent's preparation for the
arrival of his fellow painter Gaugin, he decided to contrast the deep
resplendent yellows with stormy sea purples
and Prussian blue skies. You see Vincent was often filled with deep melancholy,
which he would try to assuage by consuming absinthe. Absinthe with its residue
of bitterness, made of wormwood, results in delusion, nightmare and agony. It
is the residue of the love between the Queen of Yellow and the King of Blue.
The queen's green jealousy unbottled, unleashed into madness.
Vincent's servant was worried. He
loved Vincent and wanted him to be able to experience the rumoured euphoria
bestowed by the Queen of Yellow in order to become a prolific and admired
artist. But he was concerned that Vincent's homage to yellow would be undercut by his
inclusion of other colours. The servant hid or threw away paints unless they
were buttery, mustard, amber, chrome, citron,
or ocher. In this way he ensured that the Queen would indeed visit.
One afternoon after a particularly
bad night full of fevered nightmares, Vincent woke to see the sun streaming in
to the room which contained the sunflower paintings. He did not know, but
Flavia had arrived.
Delighted by the bright yellow
bouquets, Flavia swirled and danced. When Vincent entered the room it seemed to
take on a brighter yellow than ever before. His black mood was vanquished by
radiant joy.
He took to his paints straight
away and began to add bright colourful patches to the blank canvass. As the
painting took shape, he realized he needed a lighter yellow. He looked through
the tubes of paint recently arrived from his Paris colour man Tanguay, but all
he could find were rich, dark and bright yellows. Frustrated he left the room
and began to search through his bedroom. He came upon a small packet of white
pigment.
As Vincent applied the paint to
the canvas, Flavia grew increasingly upset. She stepped out of the room. The
skies which had been bright with sunshine changed to the grey of an impending
storm. Flavia caught the last ray of sunshine before it was covered in cloud.
The golden day was over.
Vincent's mood darkened. When
Gaugin finally arrived, the two of them were prolific. There was an electric
atmosphere in the air. But with the winter, thanks to the cold and unremitting
wind brought by the Mistral, they were confined to the yellow house. Vincent grew
despondent, quick to anger and unable to paint. They quarrelled constantly.
In December when the weather turned
cold and dark with two feet of snow all around, Vincent felt hemmed in. His
body shook with seizures so badly that he couldn't hold his paintbrush steady. It
was frustrating not to be able to paint. He wasn't sleeping well, plagued by
constant nightmares. Vincent had been diagnosed with epilepsy. His behaviour
was erratic and unpredictable. He was treated with Digitalis to stop the
seizures, and the medication caused
beautiful bright spots of yellow to appear before his eyes. When the yellow
disappeared he felt desperately alone even though Gaugin was there.
Disoriented and depressed, he
lashed out at Gaugin. Vincent took a razor and brandished it at him,
threatening his life. Gaugin ran away and locked himself in his room.
For Vincent, the pain was
unbearable, the dark engulfed him. He wanted to make it stop, he had to make it
stop.
Vincent pressed the razor against
his throat for a moment. He paused. His temples throbbed, he could barely
breathe, the black noise rushed into his ears. He became confused and dizzy.
Then a sudden clarity came to him, he was resolute. He knew what he had to do. He
had to eliminate the darkness in order to allow light to enter. For the sake of
art, he must commit a sacrifice.
He took the knife and pressed it
against his skull where the top of his left ear was attached. He stabbed hard
into the flesh and slashed downward, slicing off his ear. All traces of yellow
were washed away in a sea of crimson blood. The red pain was intense, ugly,
frightening. There was no relief. Would never be relief again.
Vincent fainted and tumbled to
the floor discovered there by Gaugin, who wrapped the ear in a handkerchief and
took it to the nearest brothel, giving it to a prostitute. Neighbors who had
been terrorized by the violence and noise coming from the yellow house, entered
the residence and took Vincent to hospital.
Upon his return, Vincent became
increasingly violent and volatile. His paintings reflected his moods with rough
textures, sharp angles, extreme contrasts, deeply saturated colours. He
retreated into his art, away from people, found consolation and comfort in his
palette, but like all artists, was never satisfied with his depiction of the
light.
Vincent's sunflower paintings
have been exhibited in galleries all over the world. Sadly the ones lightened
with white have deteriorated; the pale yellows oxidized and brown.
When she heard that he had shot
himself, Flavia cried. Her skin took on the yellow pallor of a corpse. Her soft blonde
hair turned to dry straw.
EPILOGUE
Since Vincent's death Flavia
seldom travelled from her cave, but every once in a while, her sad heart was
buoyed by a shaft of sunlight leaking into the darkness of the cave. And so she
took the occasional trip.
On one such trip, she found
herself in the workshop of an instrument maker named Adolph Sax who was cobbling
together bits of brass. So dazzled was Flavia by the shine that she began to
sing. And in that euphoric song, with its hint of melancholy, was the first
note of jazz.
It was Flavia's song that inspired Adolphe Sax
to invent the saxophone. She would visit Sax's workshop often, becoming
addicted to the sound of the saxophone, which consoled her. There was something
so beautiful in its wail, both bright and mournful. Soon Flavia stopped
returning to her cave and let herself be lulled by the beautiful music of the
saxophone.
One morning when the sunlight was
glinting off the brass so strongly that the whole room seemed to turn an
intense yellow, Flavia crawled inside the horn and never left. The Queen of
Yellow had found a home in the sustained yellow. She became the muse of every
musician who picks up a brass instrument. The Queen of Yellow continues to
reign in every golden tone.
Copyright 2012
amanda@amandaearl.com. All rights reserved. Content may not be copied or used
in whole or part without written permission from the author.
