NORTHEAST OHIO SPOTLIGHT

The Name Under the Picture

Prose by ​​M. Bennardo

The picture hangs in American Realism, Gallery 207 in the museum's 1916 wing. The picture hangs in the middle of the south wall: oil on canvas, three feet by three feet. The frame is gilt wood, adorned with no carving, a hundred years old and likely original.

It's not an allegory: it's perfectly real. It's a picture of one ghost, pursued by another.


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You look at a poem until you've read the last stanza. You look at a symphony until the conductor puts down his baton. You look at a priest until you've heard the benediction. You look at a casket until the earth starts to fall.

But there is nothing to tell you how long to look at a picture. There is nothing to tell you when you are done. Inside the frame, there is only one scene. And there, nothing changes. And there, nothing ends.

If you walk through the gallery, slowly but not stopping, twelve seconds are enough to take in that picture: just twelve seconds are enough to describe what you've seen.



The picture is a dark picture, and every color is black. A black-blue sky hangs over black-green hills, and a black-yellow track curves into the fore. In the lower left, a black-black viper wriggles and rears, its diamond head flattened and turned away. In the upper right, a black-black tree stands straight and sharp, its single leafless branch pointing up at the sky.

In the center of the picture is running a pale horse, four hooves flying, long body arched, galloping full speed the wrong way around the track. On its saddle-less back a pale rider is borne, naked and skull-faced, bearing a scythe. Like a victorious pennant, the curve of the blade trails bright and white and carelessly behind.

The name under the picture is The Race Track, or The Reverse.

The name under that name is Death on a Pale Horse.

The years it was painted are 1896 through 1908.

Since 1928, it's been hanging here.

You know it's your painting, though you never signed it. It still isn't finished, a hundred years later. It still isn't finished, but you don't know what it's missing.



You look at a racing form until you've made your selection. You look at a track until your bet has been lost. You look at a collector's bill until you've sold everything you own. You look at the barrel of a revolver until the black-black swallows all.

But there is nothing to tell you how long to look at a picture. There is nothing to tell you when you are done. There is only the canvas and it never seems finished.

Even if you are the painter, exorcising his ghost, twelve years of labor still won't banish the guilt.



He had five hundred dollars. Where he had gotten it, you never were sure. But he seemed careless and gay, and he wanted to bet. The stakes turned your stomach, but you laughed along with him. He was excited and flushed, and he waved off your worries.
    
Win or lose, he said, nothing will matter.
    
Then the horses were racing and you couldn't look away. Then the horses were racing and you couldn't watch anymore.
    
It's only money, he said after he lost. He was ripping his ticket into hundreds of shreds, and bucking you up as if it had been your wager, not his.
    
It's only money. It doesn't matter.
    
It's only money. Still, life goes on.


    
You look at his gravestone until you decide to paint him. You look at your palette until the oils turn black. You look at your canvas until you don't remember anything else. You look at your brush until it's all black black black.
    
The picture is a jockey riding a racehorse. The picture is your friend riding his debts. The picture is death riding a pale horse. The picture is his ghost still galloping through your dreams.
    
For twelve years you painted, until you set it aside. Now someone has found it and sold it and shown it. But this one wasn't finished. You'd always meant to come back to it. Even after twelve years, you'd always meant to paint more.
    
Thank God, at least, it's not with the allegories. Thank God it's among these bright portraits and landscapes. Here, it's a dark cankerous sore on American Realism. Thank God, at least, they know where it belongs.
    
Unfinished or not, it is certainly real. Every stroke you had painted was exactly what you had seen. But something is missing. Something is missing. If only you knew what, perhaps you could rest.


    
A hundred years on, somehow you still can be haunted. A hundred years on, somehow you still see him ride. Fool that you were, you laughed along with him. Fool that you were, you let him walk off alone.
    
Over his shoulder, he threw the shreds of his ticket. As he strode off, they trailed out behind. Like a victorious pennant, they fluttered and whirled. But before he had vanished, they'd settled on the black earth.
    
It was twelve hours later when he emptied his revolver. It was the last of his possessions, the only one that he hadn't sold.
    
There are very few ghosts in American Realism. But this one is here, and this one belongs. For twelve years and more, you tried to atone. But his name was what's missing, and you never did write it.
    
You see that they've added yours, underneath the title. You never signed that picture, but there it still is. Masterpiece. Genius. Death on a pale horse. Even the story is summarized in a few words. But what was his name? Why didn't you write it? Now death on a pale horse has taken him away, and a hundred years later you are still here.

Author photo: K. Sekelsky
Artwork: The Race Track (Death on a Pale Horse), c. 1896-1908. Albert Pinkham Ryder (American, 1847-1917). The Cleveland Museum of Art.

M. Bennardo

M. Bennardo is a northeast Ohio native. His short stories have recently appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, Analog, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and others. He is co-editor of two anthologies: Machine of Death (2010) and its sequel This Is How You Die (2013). He has spent many hours wandering the Cleveland Museum of Art, and Ryder's Race Track is just one of many works that he can never quite shake from his mind.