n. pl. in·cu·nab·u·la (-l)1. A book printed before 1501; an incunable.
2. An artifact of an early period.
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Autumn, 1689 While travelling to Thuringia from Saxony, sometime before the difficult events at Carcosa I have already described and a week or so following the strange supper I endured with the Bürgermeister of Leipzig, I heard a curious tale of a portrait painter who lived in the small town of Tantivy. The painter (and now, thanks to the Corsican beast, the town) is no more but his name and one or two of his paintings survive, as should his tale, and so I set it down here. The artist was known as Rothe, and I think it a name that men would do well to mark in this age of growing enlightenment with its endeavour and enquiry and relentless pursuit of knowledge. If fanaticism lies in redoubling one’s efforts while losing sight of one’s goals, then Rothe’s fanatical pursuit of his art should stand as warning to us all, although even I must succumb to the scepticism of the new age and declare myself ambivalent as to the truth of the tale I was told. So great an artist was this Rothe that he proclaimed publicly on the streets of Tantivy and the surrounding towns that nothing other than the pursuit of perfection was his goal, and that he would achieve his goal within the year. His muse drove him on, like a man possessed. If the muse of Pisanello was a delicate, jewel-winged fairy and the muse of Leonardo was a child with the mind of a god then the muse of Rothe was a steam-engine, gouting smoke and hissing restless motion. Every portrait he painted he scorned for some flaw only he could see, thrust into the arms of his startled if delighted client as the very next was ushered through the studio door. And no matter how great a client’s expectations, they were always exceeded by Rothe’s wild-eyed aspirations. Work after work he berated as a forgery of reality, unworthy of his sight and on to the next he would plunge, but closer and closer did he get to that elusive perfection. Merchants, nobility, clergy – they all sat for Rothe, they all marvelled at his work, they all left chastened and bemused by his furious rejection of the wonders he had created in their image. But his fame grew and grew, and he edged closer and closer to his impossible goal. Then, one night, Rothe was disturbed in his garret – not by sleep, which his muse would seldom allow to visit - but by a slow and insistent knocking on his studio door. Downing his paintbrush, he descended to answer. There, on his doorstep, stood Duke Albrecht of Altenburg himself (to you or I this would be a signal moment in itself, but to Rothe it was something else entirely, for the Duke had been dead for thirty years) Rothe, his acid tongue for once quelled, rocked backwards and forwards in the wavering candlelight, his sleep-deprived mind only able to wonder at the mode of address suitable for a deceased Duke. The Duke, however, was labouring under no such encumbrance and, in the accustomed, forthright manner which had so endeared him to his subjects during his long reign, informed Rothe that his fame was now so great even the dead in that deep place where the sun is silent had heard his name, and that the Duke would now sit for Rothe. What man can deny a Duke? What loyal subject could want for a better subject? Reasoning that perhaps the nature of his clients – the living nature of his clients – was limiting him in his quest for perfection, he quickly agreed. What artist could refuse evidence that his pull extended beyond the grave? He set to work. A crowd had gathered outside and his students were sorely tested in keeping them from the studio door, but by nightfall the next day, Rothe had finished. He stood back, then back a little further as the Duke strode up to view the portrait. His dead eyes looked for a long time. Not only had Rothe painted what sat before him, he had painted everything the Duke had ever been when he was alive. The husband he had been to the Duchesses. The stern father he had been to his sons and to his people. The Duchy that had borne his name, and was monument and legacy to his iron will. For many a long minute the Duke stood and stared, then he spoke. “Thirty years dead, and nearly seventy among the living, and I did not know this is who I was.” He turned and put one be-ringed, bone-fingered hand on Rothe’s shoulder. “You have shown me what the quiet lands could not in an eternity of wandering. You have shown me what it means to have once been alive, and for this you have my thanks.” With those words the Duke crumbled into dust, and Rothe fell weeping to his knees, for he knew that he had betrayed his Duke. His portrait had still not been perfect. There was so much more he could have shown the Duke of Altenburg, if only his hands had clawed that bit nearer the summit of his vision. Still, dread perfection had eluded him. If Rothe had thought that the sightless realm’s interest in his talents had begun and ended with the Duke of Altenburg, he was mistaken. While the living still clamoured for his talents, the dead did so too, if less volubly and at less suitable hours. Rothe redoubled his efforts, working on several pieces at once, darting from canvas to canvas, holding the visions complete in his mind as his studio held their earthly facsimiles incomplete, and somewhere amid the flowing paint and breathless motion heavenly beauty took shape, but it was never beautiful enough. He tore his hair and his beard and ranted out his fury at his traitorous hands, but he was getting closer and closer with every completed portrait. Then the day came. The congregation gathering at the church of Mariendom stopped and gasped and fell to their knees in prayer. From above the central door, the depiction of Christ in Majesty wrought of stone and frosted in gilt, moved. The statue left behind its holy womb and descended to the plaza below, while in the façade above the Ten Virgins danced and sang. Not a soul dared move, or breathe. Then the statue began to walk across the plaza, and where else but in the direction of the studio of the artist Rothe? And where was Rothe, devout though he was as the church bells pealed? He stood waiting, knowing that today was the day. He opened the studio door as the statue approached, and fell to both knees as it entered. Here was duty. Here was glory. Here was destiny. The statue of the Son of God sat and Rothe turned to his prepared canvas, raised his finest brushes and began to paint. When he was done, the sun had crossed the sky twice. With the final stroke of his brush he realised he had accomplished his goal and achieved true perfection. The face of God gazed out of the painting at Rothe. He fell heavily to his knees, and bowed his head in prayer. “My Lord,” he whispered. “Had I known, I would never have dared.” And The Lord spoke to Rothe. “What am I, but perfection in all its forms, which has only one true form? You knew not what it was you sought all this time?” Rothe trembled as the heavenly light filled his studio. He breathed air like golden wine, and heard the far-off echoes of the songs of the angels. “Forgive me, My Lord,” was all he could say. “My child, you have accomplished what but one other mortal in history has. Ask, and you shall receive.” “Relieve me of my burden, My Lord. What I have finished, I still dare not look upon. My work is done. My life is done. The muse that drove me has been sated. Relieve me of my burden, My Lord.” It was the Bishop of Mariendom and his priests who broke into the studio that evening, after the light spilling through the cracks in the plaster had faded, for there were none other in the town who dared. It has he who saw the painting, covered by a heavy cloth, and had it carried away. And it was he who cradled Rothe in his arms, and caused him to be laid in state on a catafalque in the diamond-vaulted crypt beneath Mariendom. The following week Rome arrived to claim both the painting and his body, and neither has ever been seen since. THE END
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