When the painting was auctioned off and sold for a million, I didn’t know what impact it would have on the world. That was many decades ago, now. Before galleries were replaced with motorways. When art pieces decorated living rooms. Back when children learned how to paint and draw in schools.
Nobody could have predicted the rendering. Some have described it as a disease, but that term has since become outdated. There is no scientific basis for what occurs, although it is quite easy to prove empirically. The rendering eats away at art – though, of course, only the visual arts are affected. The painting remains intact, but the subject disappears.
The Mona Lisa, now a balcony view of a mountainous landscape – the chair remains untouched at the bottom of the picture. The Girl with a Pearl Earring, turned into a black void – some have reported to feel faint upon seeing the vacant canvas. Monet’s Impression, Sunrise, now a mixture of oils depicting water and the sky – the red sun remains, but the boats and docks have since faded into their surroundings.
I am near the end of my life now; I can feel my body weakening. That is why I am writing this – in the hope that scientists and scholars might learn from what I have kept secret for so long. I didn’t know what would happen when I sold the painting. I didn’t know there was a deeper implication to what was missing from it. Nor, that it was something which could spread.
All I can do is hope, in the interests of future generations, that one day humanity will make sense of it all.
Before I read the police report, I had completely forgotten about my father’s painting. The report provided a list of what was found in his home, which was a strange way to learn about the items which I now inherited.
He was found dead in his home study, probably lying there for weeks before the neighbour knocked on his door. Mrs Barter said she became increasingly worried about the buildup of mail that began to overspill across the front door steps.
His house was brutalist inspired. From the outside, thick rectangles of concrete protruded out of the neighbouring terrace, which planted itself in front of a grass patch. I didn’t feel comfortable entering first, so my husband led the way. We had been putting off our visit for almost a year by that point. The plan was to sell the house as soon as possible, but life always seemed to get in the way.
Its windows were tinged a murky green, an assortment of glass shapes of all sizes and positions. As we entered, however, the interior sprouted beautiful, seventies inspired, art décor. The Bauhaus lamp drooped over the spacious dining area. The Retro chairs sank into the grey carpet. I thought about how its fluff was probably never washed, anything dropped or spilled remaining deep within its depths.
The sounds of heavy breathing clogged the respirator masks, which my husband and I wore as precaution against the black mould which seeped through the planked walls. We decided to look upstairs first, reaching the top of the wooden spiral staircase which I once hurried down every morning before school.
My husband wrote down the items which we passed by, with a dash before an estimation of each price:
Circular golden mirror – £95?
Ceramic vase - £20?
Small antique desk of drawers – £110?
Steel lamp – £30?
Picture frames – £2?
I moved away from my father as soon as I turned eighteen; it didn’t end on the best of terms. Around that time was when I met my first husband, and I saw very little of my father after that. He never met my children, though I knew he always wanted grandkids. As we noted down the objects in my old room, I imagined him sitting there with my daughters, reading stories as they fell asleep and tucking them into bed like he once did with me.
Now, however, the bed was in a different position. My room was made into a spare bedroom after I left, though he rarely had visitors. You could tell by the small portrait of my mother, which sat covered in dust on the bedside table. Its glass encasing had been crudely repaired with blobs of glue.
My mother died when I was three. A freak accident, is what my father told strangers. She was walking past a construction site when a stray brick hit her. This was probably the only picture that my father kept of her, though I couldn’t blame him for trying to move on.
Her black hair was thick in a bob. She had brown eyes which slanted downwards like mine. It made her look sad, in spite of a dimpled smile. The picture was taken at a football stadium, though the seats were all empty. I don’t know why it was taken and I never thought to ask. I’m not sure where the framed portrait is now. Probably at the bottom of a moving box somewhere, in one of the many houses that I’ve lived in since.
We placed the smaller items in the corridor and made our way back downstairs, noting the serial number on the digital fireplace, which was transplanted where the old fireplace used to be. I remember throwing chunks of dried wood into it on chilly mornings, waking up to my bowl of cereal, feet spread-out by the fire.
I dreaded the thought of entering my father’s study, so we checked out the kitchen first. The hob and oven were well-used, though I knew he didn’t cook as much in his later years. The same transparent stools hid beneath the countertop, and I remember doing my homework there, papers scattered across the marble while he cooked us pasta and meatballs.
I was thankful that I had the mask on, for I’m sure that the cupboards gave off a rancid smell. The remains of a rat curdled behind a cup and saucer. In the neighbouring cupboard, the shed skin of a snake produced gooey discharge. I wondered what state the house must have been in while he still lived there. How quickly, it seemed, that nature and rot had taken over.
I could feel every movement of every step as we walked down the concrete stairs, my husband leading the way into my father’s study. It was strange to be inside its walls. I had only been in once before. When I lived there, it was always off limits.
I remember what I’d hear in the middle of the night. Going to the kitchen for a glass of water, only to be startled by the sounds of my father scraping something underneath the floorboards. There were times when he seemed to never leave his study. Back then, I didn’t know the extent of what he was going through.
The room was smaller than I had remembered. It also lacked the grotesque features which I had imagined. I was expecting there to be chalk on the floor – an outline of where his body once lay. I stood next to a pile of paper and half opened letters, wondering whether I was standing at the exact spot where he was found. I couldn’t help but keep an eye out for gory remains – perhaps a stray maggot which had infested his belly. However, there were no signs that a body had been found there.
I was inspecting the book shelf when my husband noticed the painting. He removed the drapery from the canvas which leaned against the work table, as I explained that what we were looking at, was not my father’s creation.
I recognised the painting instantly. I could tell from the harsh strokes of yellowish brown which shaped the background, and the darker shade which depicted a table, that it once had been Sunflowers by Van Gogh. However, the famous painting had become almost entirely unrecognisable.
Where sunflowers once sat, was instead a vacuum. The yellow paint which surrounded it had become swirled and distorted at its centre. There was no longer a subject. The flowers, entirely missing.
That was the first time I witnessed the rendering.
When my husband and I discovered the painting, the prospect of the rendering was entirely inconceivable. It is important to remember how surreal the concept of it was when it first began. For months, people shrugged it off as some kind of marketing ploy by the galleries. A strange form of modern art – what if these famous paintings were forever altered?
The rendering began to spread days after I sold it.
‘My father painted it. It represents our relationship to famous historical artists. He died shortly after finishing it,’ is what I told the auction house. Of course, none of this was true. Back then, I didn’t tell anyone that it was an original Gogh.
The painting sold for over £1,000,000 – it went to an exhibition in Tate Modern. A few days later was October 4th 2032, the first recorded incident of the rendering. Every painting in the gallery was infected. News articles showcased images of the altered paintings, alongside the official statement from the gallery. The public soon swarmed the exhibitions, duplicating the artworks with their phones and sharing it online. How could we have known back then, that the rendering was also able to spread across the Internet.
My father was an art conservator at the National Gallery, specialising in the restoration of old paintings. My Aunt would sometimes drop me off at his work after school, and I remember many bored afternoons – sunny and rainy days, running back and forth down the white looping hallways.
I would take my father’s spare keycard and wander through paid exhibitions, squeezing through crowds of visitors which swarmed the most famous of the artworks. I remember exploring the rooms at the back, feeling important as I passed through doors labelled “staff only.” My father’s colleagues would give me sweets and fizzy drinks from the vending machine, and I would sometimes observe as they delicately dabbed brown canvases white with a cotton bud dipped in solvent.
Sometimes my father would let me help him, and I always enjoyed fetching tools and equipment from across the conservator office. There was one day, however, which I remember more vividly than others.
I was catching up on homework while he fiddled with a large X-Ray machine, which sat on a metal countertop. I’m not sure what my father saw in the X-Ray that day, but he was never truly the same after that. His eyes widened; pure terror on his face as he stared at what was beneath the painting from the computer screen. He was always very calm, but that was the first time I saw him emote with such fear. The painting he was observing was Sunflowers by Van Gogh.
He barely spoke to me for the rest of that day. I remember bugging him for attention on the tube ride home, prodding the painting which he held wrapped in drapery under-arm. I didn’t expect him to scream at me – it was rare for him to raise his voice, especially in public. I was probably around nine at the time, and after that he became increasingly reclusive. Of course, only much later did I realise that he was stealing Gogh’s painting.
My Aunt took care of me while my father worked, though she died before I was eleven. After that, I spent most evenings waiting in after-school club. I would sit by the window and watch the gate to the car-park, excited anytime its steel doors would automatically open.
When we got home, my father would send me straight to bed. He was always exhausted from work and didn’t have the energy to play with me. As he became more isolated, the hours we spent together became few and far between. He was always in his study. The door locked tight.
Sometimes, I would be having breakfast when I’d see him walking up the stairs from his study. He would stay there all night. I don’t know if he ever slept. I remember his shirt was stained with vibrant yellows and browns. His eyes deep and saggy.
My father’s mental decline was not linear, however. There were moments where he seemed much happier. He laughed more. We spent more time together. That was around the time when he started dating Chloe – she had long blonde hair and a thick Geordie accent, though their relationship didn’t last very long.
My memories are scattered during those years, but I remember going to a football game with my father and Chloe. He bought me a hotdog, and for them, two beers. He squeezed my apple juice carton into a plastic pint cup and let me pretend that I was drinking beer with them.
That was the sort of humour which my father had, and for a while it seemed like he was himself again. But still, when it came to the painting, he remained completely serious.
It was one of the few times that I’d ever been in his study. I was home alone, when my bouncy ball rolled down the concrete steps and through the open door. It was rare for my father to leave it unlocked. Especially wide-open. I crept down the stairs and took a look inside.
I found the painting sat on its easel. Paint brushes were scattered across the desk next to it. The sunflowers remained at its centre, so it must have been before the rendering had set in. I recognised that it was a Van Gogh, probably from an art class in school. But still, there was something strange about it. The paint was wet. As though someone had been painting over it.
Later that day, I asked him why he had a fake copy of Sunflowers in his study. I remember him screaming at me, questioning what I had told my classmates and teachers. He told me that I should never, under any circumstances, set foot in that room again. The next time I went inside was with my husband, a year after my father had died.
I always had the strangest nightmares when I lived in that house. One of the nightmares, however, was recurring.
I am in a dark yellow room and I have the immense feeling that I am being watched. At first, it feels like the walls are transparent. But that is when I see it. That is when I see what is watching me.
Standing upright, in the corner of the room, is a humanoid figure with many heads. I can only see a silhouette, but it has heads like bulbs, and multiple necks which bend and spiral as though made out of thick wire. That is when I remember that this nightmare will end how it always ends, and I look down and see that my body is disappearing. I am fading out into the yellow. Only now do I connect this nightmare to the painting itself.
Throughout my childhood, I was entirely unaware of what my father was doing in his study. As I reached adolescence the curiosity rose. But back then, I had too much angst to fully care.
It was during a house party that I encountered the painting again. I was about thirteen at the time. It was my father’s party – we hosted it at our home. All his friends and colleagues were there. They were all artsy people (though nowadays, that way of living is pretty much extinct). They discussed the latest trends of the art and fashion world. What projects they were working on. Which designer brands made their oversized glasses.
I roamed the house with a rainbow slinky, propelling it down the staircase and at anyone I didn’t like the look of. I remember people asking where I got it from, and becoming increasingly annoyed as they repeated themselves and stumbled over their own words. I danced and showed off my moves to the guests – they were impressed by my knowledge of the vinyl’s which my father had collected in the tall, transparent cabinet.
I tried to sling-shot the slinky across the living room, when I accidentally smashed the picture frame. My mother’s portrait shattered against the floor; glass lodged into the carpet’s fabric. I had no attachment to the picture, though I was unsure how my father would respond. I left the picture where it was and looked around the house in search for him. But as the house became more crowded, my chances lessened.
I asked guest after guest, but nobody had seen him. I tried speaking to Chloe, but all she repeated was, ‘Isn’t it past your bedtime?’ That was when the lights switched off. The crowd was starting a rave.
I remember how the electronic bassline pounded against my organs, as I was surrounded by the jumping bodies of excited guests. The crowd became thicker as I tried to squeeze through, the faces of strangers loomed over me – their torsos pushing me into other torsos.
Only one person took notice of me – a young woman grabbed my arm and pulled me out. I don’t know who she was, but I remember she had a kind smile and black hair in a trendy bob.
‘Are you okay, love?’ she asked. I told her that I was looking for my father, and we held hands as we searched the house.
I don’t recall what we spoke about, but I remember that we talked for a while. It was when we approached the concrete steps to his study, that we finally heard my father’s voice.
She must have felt awkward, hearing the sounds of him sobbing. When I looked back, she was gone. I sat at the top of the stairs, watching my father from the study door which was slightly ajar.
From the glow of the table lamp I saw his mouth move, but I could not see who he was speaking to. Tears were streaming down his cheeks. He seemed frightened. I find it no coincidence, that leaning against the easel next to him was Sunflowers.
After he broke up with Chloe, I rarely saw my father. He was either at work or in his study. Bottles of whiskey started to fill the kitchen countertop, but I never saw him drink. During this time, there was only one more encounter which I had with Sunflowers. Though it wasn’t the same painting which my father possessed.
I was a bit older then, about fifteen. I dreamt of the day that I was old enough to leave home. I was studying for my GCSE’s, and made use of my easy access to the National Gallery for an art project which I was working on. My father insisted that he should walk me through the exhibitions, and I remember how awkward it felt. Like we barely knew each other.
It was when we got to Sunflowers, which hung in its glass encasing on the white wall, that he started acting stranger. I remember how awful his breath was, as he moved closer towards me as he spoke. He told me that Sunflowers had been my mother’s favourite painting. She always dreamt of having the original in her home. That was when he told me that the painting on the wall was not painted by Van Gogh, but himself.
I didn’t take him seriously, of course. How absurd it was to think, that millions of people each year came to see a painting which was painted by my father. Besides the serious crime which that implied. It was much later, when I realised that he was telling the truth. I now understand his motives, as twisted as they may have been.
I left home the day after my eighteenth birthday; he didn’t try to stop me. By that point, my father had closed off from the outside world. He quit his job at the National Gallery. He ordered his grocery shopping online. He became a shut-in. He barely left his home office – besides making himself dinner or going to the bathroom.
I truly hated him back then. When I left, I cut off all contact. I saw him once every few years, though only because of mutual family arrangements. My cousins told me that I was being too harsh – that he’s becoming an old man and needs my support. But I didn’t care to understand him. I didn’t want to. It was only when I saw his study, a year after his death, that I realised why he became so absent. However, I’m only beginning to understand it now.
Every time he repainted the sunflowers, they disappeared. How many attempts had he made over the years? His life was consumed by that painting. Did he know what would happen? Did he know that it would spread?
It is unclear whether we will ever cure the rendering. But I hope, that by knowing its origins, we are a step closer to understanding it.
I still shudder at the image. Night after night, for over twenty years, my father sat alone in that study. Desk lit only by a white lamp. Vinyl spinning in its machine. Black rot leaking through the walls. He was permanently stuck in fear.
Painting over the same canvas. Over and over again.