Violetta: Paintings from elsewhere
She stood staring at yet another painting that ended up the same as the others. As of late they all were some version of the same painting. Odd and abstract or from her point of view it was. She’d visited a wizard and a priest, both had told her she was fine, that she wasn’t possessed. But then how could they explain all of her paintings being so close to identical to the one before it. It never mattered what the painting started as, it always ended up the same. She’d be painting a perfect landscape of where a meadow of wild flowers met the start of a barren mountain's slope, or stormy waters on a sea as it rocked a ship in the distance, a night sky through the treetops, even a simple still of flowers in a vase or fruit on a table, all the same, they all ended up somehow, without her knowledge the same painting. She’d begun to think the new paints she’d bought had been cursed in some sick prank, but she’d had a friend try the paints, they were able to apply whatever color they wish, and paint what they’d wanted, then she thought she’d been cursed. But more than one high ranking member of several churches hadn’t found anything, and told her that if she was cursed it was something so strong or so small they couldn’t sense it, and a wizard had confirmed that her paints and brushes were not cursed. So it didn’t make any sense why this was happening. Violetta hadn't painted in nearly two months, fearing the moment the brush hit the canvas she’d see that same painting take shape. She couldn’t explain it but something was terrifying about the painting. Not like a pack of wolves blocking your path, or a powerful storm that can rip the roofs off houses. But it was something that just caused a deeply unshakable feeling of distress, something unsettling in a way no ordering of words could do justice. Violetta couldn’t call it ‘primal’ she wouldn’t really know or have anything to compare it to. It felt more like something even older than primal fear, while being something no human had ever felt. Had her hands not betrayed her as of late she would paint the feeling she felt. She could picture it, angry blacks and purples, vicious reds, stark whites, coming together in fluid swirls and violent lines. Color splashes with purpose and yet reckless abandon, a chaotic order.
With some reluctance Violetta placed a canvas on the easel. She wouldn’t paint the feelings she felt, she left out any colors that appeared in those paintings. Maybe without them the painting would remain as she imagined it. She wrinkled her nose. Not many things came to mind with the limited colors she had. Violetta settled on painting a single strawberry without it stem, since she didn’t have any green paint. And with not black she couldn’t do any shadow…”Maybe this wasn’t worth the effort, it would just look like a red spotted blob”…she looked at her paint options again…”No white either.” she said, “So no seeds…”
She run her hands up and down her face in frustration, before going over to the crate that held her paints, grabbing them all, slamming them on the table almost too hard, only realizing it after she’d slammed them, cringing and checking for leaks. When she was satisfied they were fine she took out that walnut oil, and mixed several of the dry pigments.
Violetta took a deep breath before making the first stroke across the canvas, willing everything inside her to just paint a flower, just one tiger lily, one. It wasn’t hard, it was one of the first flowers she’d painted. It was coming along nicely. The shades of orange, the brown spots on the petals, that verdant stem. All perfect. All she needed to do was add the shadows, and details on the edges to make it look real, like you could reach out and pluck it from the canvas and smell it. Violetta smiled to herself, letting herself breathe, she closed her eyes, and when she opened them…it was there…again. Black, so dark, not like any paint she had. Wet and glossy no matter how long it dried, not like water, or oil. Something strange, unfinished. Near the center of the canvas, a large circle, an ugly brownish-green, outlined in a halo of white and sickly green, connected with lines connecting it to several smaller circles. Fleck of the same sickly greenish color trailed off from the center to the right of the painting.
Violetta screamed, something almost inhumanly in a kind of pain no one could understand, she ripped the painting from the canvas, gathering up all the other paintings like it and throwing them into her fireplace. Watching with blank eyes, as the fire licked at her art, slowly catching the fabric alight, spreading in blackening curls. As the flames spread the paint bubbled on the surface, changing back before her eyes to painting after painting of what the art was meant to be and not the somehow horrific scene of some place not meant to be seen, something she’d never seen but somehow knew existed. Not just a dream or a piece of art made in a daze, but somewhere real. She looked to one of the paints that had not turned sour, a landscape overlooking the water. In the distance a figure stood on a hill. She’d remember thinking it was weird and it was just a vague silhouette, but she’d added it at the time thinking it was important to capture, then the painting had started…how that person…or demon made her paint those things? Violetta turned back to the fire, sending dark smoke up her chimney. She’d need to go back. It had been longer than a year since she’d made that painting but maybe that place had answers, or maybe she’d break the painting curse. It didn’t matter she had to go, even if it changed nothing, not trying was worse.