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Chapter 57: Imonalisa
TL: Enuma ID
He could hear the adults talking out in the living room.
The teacher's voice. Mr. Park's voice. His aunt's voice.
He can't quite make out what they're saying. It seemed to be about money, maybe.
Lee Jun was in his room.
Еňǔm ä. іd
Not in front of the canvas, but on the floor. A sketchbook open in front of him.
Today, for some reason, he wasn't in the mood to paint on canvas.
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Maybe it's because he painted his fill yesterday.
A small canvas leaned against the wall.
A size-eight portrait. His aunt's face.
It was a painting he'd started as sfumato practice.
Е ñ ũ m̃a
He'd built up more than ten layers across the whole canvas.
It still hadn't reached even half the feeling he was after.
But it was far better than it had been at the start.
Little by little, he was getting the hang of it.
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Sfumato was, in a sense, endlessly repetitive work.
A coat thin enough to see through goes on once a day, twice on a good day.
Е nu m̊.а
Everywhere a boundary needs to dissolve. Between the nose and the cheek, the edge of the lips, the line of the jaw.
Dozens of layers per spot. Each one, all over the canvas.
It just repeats until the boundary disappears, and then it's done. That was all there was to it.
[Honestly, who knows how many years this'll take to finish......]
The Shadow muttered, as if dumbfounded.
"It'll be pretty when it's done."
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Lee Jun looked at the painting too.
The picture of his aunt, painted after the Mona Lisa.
It was his aunt, smiling faintly.
Mona Lisa aunt.
Aunt Mona Lisa.
Aunt Mona Lisa......?
W̆ ėbñо̃v́ èl Е̄ n̆ ûm a
".........Imonalisa." [TL Note: "imo" (이모) is Korean for "aunt"; blended with "Mona Lisa", it becomes "Imonalisa".]
[...What even is that.]
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"The title of this painting."
The Shadow recoiled.
[Oh, please, can't you go with something else? Hm? There are plenty of pretty names.]
The Shadow pleaded, but Lee Jun shook his head.
E.ñù ma.і d
And so the painting's title was decided.
'Imonalisa.'
Lee Jun liked the name enormously.
*
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He looked down at the sketchbook.
White paper.
En û m̌а
He thought about what to draw.
There was no particular homework. The teacher had said he'd give a new assignment next week.
Today was a day he could draw whatever he liked.
[What are you going to draw?]
The Shadow sat down beside him.
Lee Jun thought.
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The things he'd drawn lately. The sky. Clouds. A cylinder. A still life. The scene at the awards ceremony.
'The People Who Congratulate Me' had a lot of people in it, but there were so many, in fact, that he couldn't draw them properly.
He wanted to draw a person more properly this time.
"People."
[Which people?]
Lee Jun glanced out the window for a moment.
Еñù ṁа̀. і ḋ
From the living room came the sound of his aunt laughing.
"My family."
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[.......]
The Shadow froze.
"Mom and Dad. And my aunt. I want to draw them all together."
The Shadow's white eyes looked at Lee Jun.
Е n ú m̄.ӑ . іd́
For a long while.
[......That's good.]
For some reason its voice was low. Not its usual buoyant tone.
[Painting your family is a good thing.]
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"Mm."
[No, it's more than just good.]
Е́ n̆u̇m а̊
The Shadow rose taller.
[Jun. When a painter paints his family, it carries a special meaning.]
"Special meaning?"
[A landscape is the same landscape no matter who paints it. An apple's the same apple no matter who paints it too.
But family is different. In all the world, you're the only person who can paint your family.]
Lee Jun nodded.
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[Your mom's face as your eyes see it, your dad's hands as your eyes see them, your aunt's smile as your eyes see it.
No photograph can catch that. It only stays if you paint it.]
"It's different from a photo?"
[Completely different.]
The Shadow said it firmly.
[A photo captures only the surface. A painting captures what the painter sees through his own eyes.]
Е̊ n̆ ü mȧ . і_d
Lee Jun thought it over carefully.
What that difference was.
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[Take a photo of your aunt and you get only her surface. Paint your aunt, and the heart you feel as you look at her comes out along with her. That's what a family painting is.]
Lee Jun looked at the Imonalisa.
The small canvas leaning against the wall.
His aunt's smile. His aunt's face as Lee Jun knew it.
Е̂ n u.ṁа́
A face that maybe his aunt herself didn't know.
Lee Jun had painted this picture remembering his aunt's face whenever she looked at him. His aunt, smiling warmly.
That feeling had gone into the painting.
His aunt's heart as she smiled at him, and his own heart as he looked back at her, both of them.
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A photograph can't hold that. The Shadow was right.
[That's why it's good to paint them often. Family pictures.]
Ĕ n̄ ū m̂ à_.іd̂
"Often?"
[Mm. It's not one and done. Because a family's faces keep changing.]
"They change?"
[Your aunt now and your aunt a year from now will be different. Your mom and dad now and your mom and dad ten years from now will be different too.
If you paint them as you go, later you can gather them all up and look at them. That becomes your family's history.]
Lee Jun thought quietly.
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He can't really tell that his mom's and dad's faces have changed. His aunt's either.
But compared to the first time he'd seen his aunt, way back, he had the feeling she'd changed a little.
[The old masters all did the same. Rembrandt painted his wife dozens of times, and Monet did too.
To paint your family is to leave the trace of someone you love behind in the world. In a way only a painter can......]
Toward the end, its voice grew smaller and smaller.
And then it went quiet.
Ӗnu̇ma
Now it seemed it didn't want to talk anymore.
"Mm."
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Lee Jun picked up his pencil.
What he was drawing was a memory from yesterday.
For the first time in a while, the whole family had gotten together for samgyeopsal.
It might have been nothing at all, but to Lee Jun it was a special memory.
É n̆ u m а̃. і̌d
And so he sets it down in a picture.
First, his mom.
She'd been sitting on the left. Yesterday.
At the samgyeopsal place, when they'd all sat around the round table, his mom had been on Lee Jun's left.
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Lee Jun drew his mom's profile.
Not head-on, but at a slight angle. The angle he'd see when he turned his head left from his own seat.
Еn̄ ǔ ḿa_
The painting's point of view was the same one Lee Jun had had yesterday.
His mom had been holding the tongs.
Whenever a piece of meat was done, she'd set it in front of her son.
"This one's all cooked, Jun."
That voice came back to him.
The hand that had picked the meat up with the tongs and laid it on the plate in front of Lee Jun.
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Lee Jun drew his mom's hand first. The hand gripping the tongs.
Then the arm. From the arm to the shoulder. From the shoulder to the neck. From the neck to the face.
His mom's eyes had been on the meat. Not on Lee Jun.
But the tongs had been pointed toward Lee Jun.
Eyes on the meat, hands turned toward Lee Jun.
That was his mom.
Ӗn u m̃ а́
[Her eyes and her hands are looking at different places.]
"She's always like that. My mom is."
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Next, his dad.
Head-on. Right across from Lee Jun.
His dad had been holding the tongs and the scissors.
He'd laid the meat on the grill and snipped it with the scissors.
Е̊n̈ u m̄ а̂
This time too, he drew his dad's hands first.
Fingers bigger and thicker than his mom's.
To the touch they were rough and hard. His dad's hands were different from his mom's.
"Dad's hands are hard. How do I draw something that's hard?"
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[Just lay the color in a bit darker. Make the fingers thick.]
"Mm."
Е̄.n̂ ûm̆а̂.i ḋ
The arms are thick, the shoulders wide.
His dad's face. Head-on.
The eyes were cast down and the mouth was closed.
The dark brows tilt upward as if he's angry.
But Lee Jun knows that isn't anger.
It was the face his dad made when he was concentrating hard.
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Next, his aunt.
She'd been on Lee Jun's right.
His aunt hadn't been eating the meat.
She'd been taking pictures with her phone.
Photos of the food, selfies, and Lee Jun too. And she'd gotten an earful from his mom to quit snapping and eat some meat.
Lee Jun drew his aunt's two hands. The two hands holding the phone.
We̊ bnоv̆е́ l Е ñ.úm̈ ä
The phone aimed this way. She'd been taking a picture of Lee Jun.
Yet Lee Jun himself isn't in the picture. Because he'd drawn it from the point of view he saw.
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His aunt's camera faced the front of the picture.
Once this picture was finished, it would be aimed at whoever looked at it.
[So your aunt takes pictures even in the middle of eating.]
"She does it all the time."
W̌ еḃn̈оv̈ е̇ l̊ Е̌n̆ úm̌ а
He'd drawn all three of them.
Mom on the left. Dad in front. Aunt on the right.
In the middle was the round grill.
Meat sat on it. The grease was spitting.
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Lee Jun drew the smoke.
Smoke rising from the grill. Smoke rising up between the three of them.
W̃ ӗb́ nò v ĕ l̂ Еn̆ũmâ
He puzzled for a moment over how to draw smoke.
With a pencil, he could get it by smudging. Like sfumato.
He rubbed the pencil dust lightly with his finger.
The edges of the three of them blurred a little in the smoke.
The Shadow leaned forward.
[What did you just do?]
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"Smoke."
[No, that's not what I mean. Did you just dissolve people with smoke?]
Lee Jun tilted his head.
"Because the smoke's in front. If a person's behind the smoke, they get blurry."
It was an obvious thing to say.
The smoke over the grill really had drifted in front of the people. And when it does, whoever's behind it looks hazy.
Ẅеb̌ṅo v́ e̊l Е̇ nu m̊ ǎ
He'd just drawn that.
[......Atmospheric perspective.]
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"Hm?"
[No, it's nothing. Just keep drawing.]
The Shadow hastily changed the subject.
But its white eyes had gone round.
E n u̇ m̄ à.i d̂
Lee Jun paid it no mind and kept drawing.
He drew the meat on the grill. One side cooked brown, the other still pink.
Half-cooked meat. Meat his mom was about to flip.
And then Lee Jun's own seat.
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A single plate. On it, a few pieces of meat his mom had set down. A glass of cola.
[You left your own seat empty.]
Ё num ӓ
"Because I'm the one looking."
The round table. The round grill. The rising smoke.
Mom on the left. Dad in front. Aunt on the right.
And this empty seat over here. A single piece of meat on the plate.
Anyone who looks at the picture naturally ends up sitting in Lee Jun's seat.
They come to see the family through Lee Jun's eyes.
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"Mm. What I saw yesterday."
Last of all, Lee Jun drew the things on the table.
The dish of ssamjang. The plate of salt. The glass of cola. The cup of water.
He drew that far and set the pencil down.
*
The living room went quiet.
Ѐ n ü m̊ǎ
Footsteps came toward the room.
The door opened.
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"Jun? I'm coming in. We're all done talking with your teacher."
It was his aunt.
Behind her stood Kim Yo-han and Park Sang-hoon.
"What were you drawing?"
W е ḃn̆ о̂v̌ е́ l Е̇.n̆ů m̌ а
There was no canvas up on the easel.
His aunt's eyes went to the sketchbook Lee Jun was holding.
"Oh? Is this your mom and dad?"
"Mm."
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"It's from yesterday, when we went to the grill house. And I'm in it too."
"Mm."
Е̌ n ǔ m̄.a.і d
While So-young and Lee Jun talked.
The two men's eyes were somewhere else.
The small canvas leaning against the wall.
Kim Yo-han went over first.
Without a word, he crouched down in front of the canvas.
Park Sang-hoon followed.
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He pushed up his glasses and peered at the canvas.
It was a woman's face.
The boundary between the nose and the cheek was soft.
Not fully dissolved.
But not stiff either.
The edges of the lips as well. The line of the jaw too.
Ёn̂ ŭ m̌ ӓ . і ḋ
The traces of an effort to dissolve the boundaries lay stacked in layer upon layer.
Kim Yo-han lifted the canvas.
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He tilted it to look. He let the light play across the surface of the paint.
The layers showed. Thin layers, one over another.
".........Jun."
"Yes?"
W е bṅ о̆_v еl̃ Е̇ň um_а
Lee Jun turned, still hugging the sketchbook.
"How many layers is this?"
"I'm not sure. I did a lot."
"Was the underpainting burnt umber?"
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"Um, yeah. That's right."
Kim Yo-han looked at the canvas again.
Е̃ n um̃ a. і̃ d
The boy had the direction for dissolving the boundaries down right. He still had a long way to go, but the direction was correct.
Park Sang-hoon, peering at the canvas beside him, turned to Lee Jun.
"Jun. What's this painting?"
"It's the Imonalisa."
"Imo......nalisa?"
"Yes. I wanted to paint my aunt like the Mona Lisa."
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"Hey! Even so, what kind of name is Imonalisa! Change it to something else!"
But Lee Jun had no intention of changing it. If anything, he thought it was a cool title.
His aunt was appalled, but the men didn't laugh.
Instead they were studying the painting with grave expressions.
Park Sang-hoon asked Kim Yo-han.
"Does it even make sense that a six-year-old decides he wants to paint like the Mona Lisa and then does?"
Enùm̄ а̊ .і d
"You can see for yourself. He's got a long way to go."
Kim Yo-han said it evenly.
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"No, but still."
"He's got a long way to go, I told you. There are still boundaries left. He needs a lot more layers, and his control of the thickness is still shaky."
Kim Yo-han looked at the canvas with a professor's eye.
He could see its shortcomings. Clearly.
W ӗ b̈_n о v̊е̌l̇_ Е n̈ům̌ ã
But he could also see what lay beyond those shortcomings.
The direction this child was headed. He simply wasn't skilled yet; the direction was right.
"But that means it's still only partway there, right? Once this is finished......"
Kim Yo-han didn't answer. There was no need to.
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Park Sang-hoon peered at the canvas again.
Between the nose and the cheek. Just as Kim Yo-han had said, a boundary still remained.
Е̃ n̆ ū m̄ â.і́ d̃
But it was dissolving. Slowly, little by little.
Layers stacked by a six-year-old.
Layers being stacked toward Leonardo da Vinci.
Just how far would this boy called Lee Jun be able to catch up?
"......Jun, this painting. It's your aunt, right?"
"Yes. My aunt."
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"It's a good likeness. This expression is a really good likeness. And there's a hint of the Mona Lisa in it, too."
"Mm. Definitely."
"Above all, his sense for catching a subject's defining features is good."
"Right. Here, the dark circles, for one. The part rendered a little darker."
The two men analyzed the painting.
Just then, So-young cut in.
W ёb̄ n о̇v̌е̊l Е̇n̆ ů m ǎ
"Would you two stop staring at it already!"
"Huh? Why?"
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Park Sang-hoon asked, baffled.
"Because it's embarrassing! That's my face drawn there! Picking apart somebody's face like that!"
So-young's ears had gone red.
The Imonalisa was a painting that held his aunt's smile as seen through Lee Jun's eyes.
É n ŭm̄ а.i d
And here were two men peering at it up close, analyzing it this way and that.
"Ah, right. My apologies."
Park Sang-hoon took a step back.
Kim Yo-han quietly set the painting down too.
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A brief silence fell.
Park Sang-hoon cleared his throat and crouched down in front of Lee Jun.
Wêb ṅ о̀ v̆е̌ l̃ Е n u m̀ а
Meeting him at eye level. With a serious face.
"Jun."
"Yes?"
"The Imonalisa, this painting."
"Yes."
"When it's finished."
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Park Sang-hoon jerked his thumb at himself.
"You've got to make the deal with me. Got it?"
Lee Jun tilted his head.
"A deal?"
"Right. You can't go selling it to anyone else. Mr. Park gets first pick. Promise."
Park Sang-hoon held out his pinky.
Е̃n̄ūm̀ а̂
"Okay."
Lee Jun didn't really know what it was about, but he hooked his pinky.
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Park Sang-hoon grinned.
"Good. Verbal contract, sealed."
"Since when do you make a verbal contract with a six-year-old?"
So-young said, exasperated.
Eň um_ȧ
"Ha ha, in this business, getting there first is what matters."
Park Sang-hoon stood and ran a hand over Lee Jun's hair.
To Park Sang-hoon, Lee Jun really was a treasure, no two ways about it.
*****
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