Gone by Martin Roper

thin grey lines emerge. There is a grid system as clear as a map of Manhattan itself. Lines that are painted with the fine wet hair of a brush, the artist’s hand working up and down, across the large canvas. Hundreds of lines and each of them perfect—or almost perfect. The edge of the brush occasionally shows itself beyond the line it has formed. I begin to see the mind of Agnes Martin, the heft of years she spent in the desert.
    Although this is art stripped of ego, it dawns on me I can see more artistic passion in this painting than anything else I have gawked at. The reclusiveness—what I considered eccentricity—is an armour worn to enable her to peel her skin away. Suddenly Rodin is as vulgar as Dali. The opinion shocks me. It makes me uncertain of all my opinions. As I stare the grid seems to fade, so too the cream texture: I am staring into myself. Art, Pound says, is fundamental accuracy of statement. Truth was found with passion and commitment. The blood runs through my veins and the hair breathes on my skin. She says religion plays no part in her life. I look at Holfy, taking in what she is saying as if she is an apparition. It is as if her voice has been in my head and her presence—my own presence—startles me.
    We scour New York together: the Met, the Guggenheim, the Frick, the Morgan. We are in the downtown Guggenheim again, looking at the Agnes Martin paintings. They still make no real sense to me—the blankness. A depth and commitment to statement. She spent years in the desert.
    â€”She’s full of herself. All ego.
    Holfy looks at me and nods, not agreeing with me. Pride stops me from admitting I’m seeing it, seeing what she sees. All else is nonsense and a chap trick. Truth had to be found with passion and commitment. This was what one did. What was true to the spirit.
    â€”She’s all ego and she doesn’t believe in religion and she was years in the desert.
    â€”Christ. It’s worse than school with you.
    She looks offended.
    â€”I’ve been listening to you. I just don’t see it. Let’s go to Fanelli’s.
    We eat and talk about photographs. She talks about Fanelli’s. She talks about her next project—photographing boxers. The food is good and she cheers up.
    â€”Photography and boxing are immediate acts. With photography it depends on the way the camera is used. Photography can have an attitude that painting never can. Paint insulates the viewer.
    I am tired listening to her. She’s going on about Beaton and his snapshots—as she calls them.
    â€”He’s morally dishonest. He says he’s getting behind glamour. Sure he is.
    I am doubting her ethos. I think of her waiting for that moment when one’s guard is down and she clicks and captures an ugly corner of the soul. Where is honesty? I have no idea what honesty or truth is. And I see I don’t know Holfy any more than I know why Agnes Martin trailed lines across canvas. Holfy lives in the grove of uncertainty. That is her fascination.
    Photography and boxing: two of her passions, two violent acts. Sixty-five percent of New Yorkers, if asked, would refuse to have their photograph taken, I read somewhere. We go back to Beaton and agree we dislike the photographs for the same reason. He insisted he didn’t take fashion shots. His work was beyond fashion. It was art. Morally dishonest shit. The same is true of Inge Morah. She, apparently, searched for the intelligence in her subjects as if this somehow portrayed a profound understanding of humanity. Knickers.
    *   *   *
    Holfy rings and tells me her cat is not eating. When I come over the cat is asleep, its purr deep as a drunken snore. We take the subway to the clinic on the East Side. The veterinarian holds Kahlo loosely in her coal-black hands and looks her over.
    â€”She’s not too good, is she?
    â€”I know that—that’s why I’m here.
    The veterinarian looks