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Chapter 29: The Little Rival
TL: Enuma ID
Yu Ha-na, the 'genius art girl' by her own account and everyone else's, loved her dad's studio.
A spacious studio. One entire wall was a window.
Because it faced north, the light came in even and soft. Perfect for painting.
Against the opposite wall stood the canvases her dad had finished.
W̊е́ bn̄о̀v̇ёl̀ Ӗ ń ũm̄ а
100 ho, 150 ho. Paintings taller than Ha-na herself.
On the shelf beside the door sat a handsome award plaque.
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'National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Artist of the Year Award.'
The award date: two years ago. It was the greatest prize an artist could win in Korean contemporary art.
Her dad kept his brush jar propped on the shelf next to that plaque and used it. And for good measure, a brush is stuck into the plaque itself, too.
If her mom saw it, she'd nag him about it all over again, but he couldn't be bothered.
W ё b n̆ о̃ v̀ èl̀ É ṅ ü m а
At home her mom was queen, but inside this studio, at least, her dad was king.
In one corner of this fine studio sits one more small easel.
Ha-na's spot. Lately, painting beside her dad had become Ha-na's daily routine.
Today, too, Ha-na sat there.
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
A 15-ho canvas. Oils.
Paint sits squeezed out on the palette. Cadmium Yellow, Viridian, Burnt Sienna, Ultramarine, white.
Wе b n̊о̂vе̇ l Ē n_ů m_а̌
Ha-na gripped her brush and glared at the canvas as if she could eat it alive.
The subject Ha-na had chosen this time was the playground near their house.
A slide, swings, and a tree are sketched onto the canvas.
It was a scene she'd already painted several times in watercolor.
She'd drawn it in crayon and colored pencil, too. She'd even taken prizes for it at competitions.
But oil painting was different.
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Just loading paint onto the brush and laying it on the canvas.
And yet, somehow, the paint wouldn't do what she wanted.
Watercolor bled along wherever the water ran. The way it bled was natural and pretty.
Oils didn't bleed. Wherever she touched the brush, it stayed right there. Thick.
Ha-na still hadn't quite gotten the hang of handling that thickness.
She painted the slide. A red slide.
Е ñû m̄а̇
She laid down Cadmium Red.
It went on thick. It spread to the sides. The shape collapsed into a smear.
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That wasn't the shape Ha-na had pictured.
"Ugh! So annoying!"
Clack.
Ha-na set her brush down.
Е̂ n̂ u m a.іd
Her dad, Byeon Jin-hyeok, heard the sound and turned his head.
Ha-na had her arms crossed, glaring at the canvas. Lip jutting out in a pout.
A fond smile crossed his face. Byeon Jin-hyeok set down his brush and went over to his daughter.
He looked at Ha-na's canvas.
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The sky was painted in Ultramarine. Not bad.
The tree, in Viridian and Burnt Sienna. The shape held.
È ňú mа
The problem was the slide.
The red paint had clumped up thick, and the shape had fallen apart.
Of course. She was handling oils the way she'd handle watercolor.
Byeon Jin-hyeok smiled to himself.
"No. This isn't it."
Ha-na spoke first. At her own painting.
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"What do you think isn't working?"
"The paint won't cooperate. With watercolor the water helps, but oils don't help with anything. They just sit there. Nothing like what I pictured."
"You're right. Oils don't help."
Byeon Jin-hyeok dragged a chair over next to Ha-na and sat down.
"Watercolor is half water. The water bleeds and dries, and you get these happy accidents, right? And those accidents are the pretty part."
"Mm."
É nu m_а̊
"Oils don't give you accidents. The paint goes exactly where you put it. That's all there is to it. It came out different from what you pictured? That just means you didn't control the paint properly."
Ha-na looked at the slide. A smeared red lump.
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"With oils, you have to decide everything. How much paint to load, which way to move the brush, how thick to lay it on. Everything."
"That's what makes it hard, and it's so annoying!"
"Of course it's hard. I was the same way when I started."
Ha-na looked at her dad. A look of disbelief.
Еń ǔ m̄_ӑ.і̌d̄
To Ha-na, her dad was the greatest painter there was.
"You were?"
"Of course. I picked up oils later than you did. It was middle school. And back then I threw fits, just like you do."
Ha-na couldn't picture it.
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Her dad throwing a fit. Because when he painted, her dad was always calm, and the oils he made were always perfect.
Byeon Jin-hyeok looked at his daughter's palette.
Е̄ṅù ḿ а̂
"You're loading on too much paint. With oils, you don't pile it on thick from the start."
"So I go thin?"
"You start thin and finish thick. It's called 'Fat over Lean'. A little oil at first, more later. Thin coats first, thick coats later."
Ha-na nodded.
But her face was still unhappy. It was the look she got when she was learning hard arithmetic.
"But why the sudden switch to oils? You've always loved watercolor."
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The National Children's Art Competition was coming up before long. Last year, Ha-na had taken the Grand Prize in the lower-grade division.
This year, now in fourth grade, she enters the upper-grade division for the first time.
So he understood why she'd be feeling the pressure.
But switching all at once to oils, a medium she'd never worked in, was if anything more likely to backfire than to bring a good result.
At her dad's question, Ha-na pushed out her lip.
"I did mean to enter with watercolor at first..."
Еnu̇ṁа̄ ._і̄d
"Mm."
Ha-na fell quiet for a moment.
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Then, after wrestling with it, she spoke.
"...It's because of that kid."
Byeon Jin-hyeok blinked.
"A kid? The one you said you saw at the museum?"
Е ň u m а
"Yeah. He's five, and he said he paints in oils."
Byeon Jin-hyeok remembered it too. The day Ha-na had come home in tears from the museum.
She'd been drawing with some kid, and the kid had drawn her face all wrong, and it had upset her. That was why she'd cried, she'd said.
And the next morning, Ha-na had said:
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'Dad, I want to paint in oils too.'
At the time, he'd assumed she'd just gotten interested in a new tool.
W̄ е bnо̃_v е l Ènù m̀ a
But that wasn't it.
"That little squirt said he paints in oils. He's bound to enter the competition too."
It was a guess. She hadn't actually heard him say so.
But Ha-na was certain. That he'd enter the competition in oils. A five-year-old.
She meant to face that five-year-old head-on, fair and square, in oils. Her eyes blazed with competitive fire.
Byeon Jin-hyeok gave a wry smile.
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"Didn't you tell me that kid couldn't draw?"
"He can't! It's a total mess! My face doesn't even look like my face! And the neck, you should see how long he stretched it!"
"Then what's gotten into you?"
Byeon Jin-hyeok asked gently.
Ha-na, born to a father who was a famous painter and a mother who was a museum director. Ha-na, who'd been given gifted art training before she could even walk.
Until now, Ha-na had never shown an attitude like this. Because Ha-na had never had a real rival.
Е ǹùmӓ
Byeon Jin-hyeok looked at his adorable daughter.
For the first time, he caught a glimpse of pride in the girl.
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The resolve to face him head-on with the very same medium. The pride of a ten-year-old who'd rather clash in oils than play it safe and collect a prize with watercolor.
What was it about that five-year-old that had done this to Ha-na?
"Did he really draw it that badly?"
Ha-na kept her mouth pressed tightly shut for a long while.
Wěb̄ n̆ о v̄е l Е̃nu m̊а
"...No."
Then she made herself speak.
Her face was still knotted in a frown.
"What that kid drew. He did my face in Conté."
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Byeon Jin-hyeok listened to his daughter quietly.
"The proportions were wrong. The neck was way too long, and the nose was just one line. Anatomically, it was completely off."
Е̃ n û m̂ а
"And?"
"But... I was there in it."
Ha-na's voice grew small.
"He barely drew a handful of lines, and it was me. I was right there. That kid's drawing of my face was more alive than the still life I painted."
Byeon Jin-hyeok looked at his daughter's face.
A face caught between resentment and acceptance. The look of someone who hated losing but knew she'd lost.
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"Back then, I couldn't admit it. So I got angry and yelled. But... I keep thinking about it."
"About the picture he drew?"
"Yeah. It was a total mess... but it keeps coming back to me. That picture.
"And that cocky face of his, acting like the whole thing was nothing!"
Ha-na balled up her fists.
She looked ready to give that five-year-old a knock on the head if he'd been standing right there in front of her.
Е n u̇ mӓ . і̇ d̄
Byeon Jin-hyeok smiled fondly.
"So you've had a fateful encounter, Ha-na."
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"A fateful encounter? What's that?"
Ha-na scrunched up her face, like she'd been handed yet another hard word.
"It's a bond where two people meet and spark each other. Painters get encounters like that every now and then."
Byeon Jin-hyeok said, tipping his chair back.
Ė n u m а̊
"You know Picasso and Matisse, right?"
"Of course! Picasso the Cubist and Matisse the Fauvist!"
Befitting her gifted art training, Ha-na had all the old masters down cold.
"When those two first met, Picasso was twenty-five and Matisse was thirty-seven.
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"Different ages, opposite temperaments. Matisse was the kind who wore a suit and painted in silence; Picasso dressed flashy and painted loud."
Ha-na listened quietly. Her dad's art history stories were always fun.
Еnu m̄å . і́_d̂
"From the moment they met, the two of them kept each other in check.
"Picasso would see something Matisse had painted, catch fire, and paint something bolder; Matisse would watch Picasso break form apart and push his own color even harder.
"They couldn't stand each other, and yet neither of them could do without the other."
"They hated each other?"
"They say Picasso looked at Matisse's paintings and said, 'What's so impressive about just changing the colors?' And Matisse called Picasso's collages 'garbage'."
Ha-na's eyes went wide.
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To think that great painters like that had said such cruel things about each other.
It was the kind of story no children's art book would ever tell.
"But here's the funny part."
Byeon Jin-hyeok grinned.
"Someone asked Matisse, 'If you were to paint in a different style than you do now, what would you want to paint?' and he said, 'I'd want to paint like Picasso'. Then they asked Picasso the same thing, and he said, 'I'd want to paint like Matisse'."
"But you said they hated each other?"
Е̄ ń u ḿ а̄
"It wasn't hate. They just didn't want to admit it. Each of them knew the other had something he didn't. That's what made them uncomfortable."
Uncomfortable.
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That word lodged itself right in Ha-na's chest.
That kid she'd met at the museum.
A drawing that was anatomically wrong. A drawing with a long neck and a nose made of a single line.
But a drawing that was alive.
Е̂ ń um̀а.і̄ d̂
That was what made her uncomfortable.
Because that kid had something Ha-na didn't.
"In the end, the two of them changed the history of art. Matisse set color free, and Picasso set form free.
"Neither of them could have done it alone. They got that far because they had each other."
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Byeon Jin-hyeok brought himself down to his daughter's eye level.
"And I'm glad, you know, because it seems like you've found a bond like that yourself."
E ǹŭ m̊ а
"Glad? As if!"
Ha-na shrieked.
"I lost to him! To a five-year-old! You have no idea how humiliating that is!"
She'd lost. Ha-na admitted it. That she'd lost to a five-year-old.
In the moment, she'd railed at the drawing for being a mess, but inside she'd known she'd lost. That was why she'd flown into a rage and run off in tears.
"That you lost is the good part."
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Byeon Jin-hyeok said with a fond smile.
"What is?!"
"If all you ever do is win, nothing changes. You've kept winning at competitions all this time. So what's changed because of it?"
Ha-na fell silent.
It was true.
Every time she won a prize, she'd been happy. But her painting hadn't changed.
Е ń ú mа . і̆ d̂
She'd simply kept doing well at what she was already good at.
But this time was different.
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After meeting that kid, Ha-na had changed.
She'd taken to sketching in imitation of that strange drawing; she'd suddenly picked up oils. Every bit of it was change that had come after meeting that kid.
"You took up oils because you lost. You wanted to learn something new because you lost. That's what a fateful encounter is."
Ha-na didn't answer.
Ẇеb n о̊.ṽ е̌ l̄ Е̂ n ǔm̈а
She looked down at her palette.
Cadmium Red sat smeared across it.
"Just from what you've told me, I can already tell.
"A five-year-old drew a portrait in Conté, and you said the figure in it was alive. For a child that age to manage that, he's no ordinary kid. Even if you told me he was fifteen instead of five—"
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He stopped short.
And then, mulling something over for a moment, he asked.
W̆ е bnо̂ v̆ е l Е̇ númа̌
"...You said the neck was long and the nose was a single line, right? That the proportions were off?"
Byeon Jin-hyeok's voice had changed. It wasn't the gentle, fatherly voice from a moment before.
Ha-na gave a small nod.
At that, Byeon Jin-hyeok murmured, as if something had just dawned on him.
"...Modigliani."
"Modigliani?"
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"Amedeo Modigliani. The long neck, the simple contour, the curve drawn in a single stroke. That's the portrait style Modigliani is known for."
Ha-na knew the name Modigliani, too. She'd learned it during her art training.
Those long-necked women. Portraits with the proportions all wrong, yet beautiful.
But she'd never actually found them beautiful. She just remembered them that way because the book had called them 'beautiful portraits'.
If anything, Ha-na thought the paintings themselves were strange. To Ha-na's eye, Modigliani's work wasn't all that pretty.
"For a five-year-old to use Modigliani's line..."
E̊n üm а
Byeon Jin-hyeok let his voice trail off.
Where had the boy learned it? Or had he seen it somewhere and copied it on his own?
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Either way, it was extraordinary.
When they're young, children can't help straining to draw things as close to real as they can. The way Ha-na does. Because they think drawing true to life is the same as drawing well.
And to think a five-year-old was imitating Modigliani.
That was anything but ordinary. Especially when he drew at a level that could shock even Ha-na, raised on gifted art training.
Е̊n̄.um а̇ .і d̄
"Just what does the drawing look like?"
He'd grown curious.
Byeon Jin-hyeok was a painter who'd won the Artist of the Year Award.
A figure standing at the very pinnacle of Korean contemporary art.
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And there that man was, his heart pounding over a story about a five-year-old.
"...That child, what did you say his name was?"
Е̇n̆ u m.а.і̀ d̆
"Lee Jun. Five-year-old Lee Jun."
"Lee Jun. Five-year-old Lee Jun."
Byeon Jin-hyeok repeated the name to himself.
"I'd like to meet him too."
"No way!"
Ha-na cried out.
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"You can't meet him! You can't be the one to meet him first! I beat him first, then you can meet him!"
Eyes blazing.
A ten-year-old's pride blazed bright.
Byeon Jin-hyeok smiled to himself.
'So this one's a painter, too.'
The tenacity to accept that she'd lost and still come back to challenge him again.
Е̌n̄ŭ m а́
And the pride that wouldn't yield even to her own father.
Matisse and Picasso had been the same.
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Detesting each other and yet unable to do without each other.
A relationship where each one's very existence pushed the other to greater heights.
His little girl had come into a bond like that.
With a five-year-old kid.
W̄ е̃b́nо̄v еl̄ Е ǹu m̀а̃
Her father's chest grew warm.
"All right. Then introduce me to him later, would you?"
He should probably set the little five-year-old painter aside for now.
Byeon Jin-hyeok turned back to his own canvas.
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100 ho. He took up a big brush.
"Hmph!"
Е num ă.
Ha-na turned back to her own canvas too.
15 ho. She took up a fine brush.
She started painting the slide again.
Thinly. Carefully. Not like before.
Byeon Jin-hyeok painted his own picture with his back turned.
But one name kept circling through his head.
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Lee Jun.
Five years old.
A child who drew Modigliani's line.
An Artist of the Year winner, his heart racing over the paintings of a five-year-old he had never even seen.
'If he really enters the competition like Ha-na says, I'll get to see them, won't I? The pictures that boy paints.'
A smile settled at the corner of Byeon Jin-hyeok's mouth as he worked the brush.
Enu̇ m ӓ
*****
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