As always, I was hopelessly lost. Clutching the wrinkled museum map in my left hand and phone in my right, I stumbled through the Asian Art Exhibit and Greek and Roman Art Exhibit and finally found myself in the midst of the 19th– and Early 20th-Century European Paintings and Sculpture Exhibit. Still nonplussed from my futile attempts to reach this exhibit, I walked a most zombie-like walk and my eyes glazed over the paintings – my brain was too tired to focus on the beautiful artwork just yet.
After a few minutes of mindless wandering, a single artwork caught my eye – Claude Monet’s The Parc Monceau. Why did this piece of art jump out to me? Maybe it was because it was so similar to Washington Square Park, where I spent almost every day during the summer strolling around. From the giant trees, the brown wooden benches, the women under parasols, the children, and men dressed up in black and white – the painting was the 1800s version of Washington Square Park, only missing the numerous instrumentalists enjoying nature and the melodies they created with their own hands. I spent quite a while just quietly staring at the work of art, at the same time reminiscing about last summer. I was zoning out, and soon it was difficult to discern whether I was looking at Monet’s The Parc Monceau or Washington Square Park itself.
I soon heard the low buzz of chatter around me mingled with the sweet sound of crickets chirping. The wind blew softly, taunting the locks of my hair to come out and play with them. Wait, wind? In the museum? I focused my eyes onto the bench in front of me. A little girl dressed in all white looked at me with her wide green eyes, cocking her head as if asking, “What’s wrong?” I jumped up immediately and whirled around to scan my surroundings. I was – I was in the painting. Women in bonnets and men with canes strolled leisurely around me. I seemed to be the only one out of place and time. I blindly staggered through the park, and stopped when I reached a large lake.
The lake was full of tiny rowboats, like the ones in Central Park. “Il est très beau, non? Tout comme une œuvre d’art,” a young man quitely said, facing me. Huh? I knew a little bit of Spanish, Japanese, and Korean, but this was not one of those languages, and it definitely was not English. My mind scrambling, I remembered that Monet was French, and realized that this man was speaking French. He didn’t look much older than me – definitely under twenty five years old. Hoping he understood the universal language of body language, I slowly pointed to myself, crossed my arms into a huge X, opened and closed my hand to mimic a mouth talking, and pointed back at him, all while slowly saying “I.. Don’t.. Speak.. French.” The man looked puzzled for a second, but slowly realized that I was a foreigner. He nodded and smiled politely, gesturing that he understood. I smiled back and walked away from him as politely as I could. “Attendre!” He called out. I turned around, puzzled. Why was he still calling out to me? All I wanted was to get out of this painting as fast as I could. I saw him scrambling along the flowerbeds, picking a flower from every bush. After hastily wrapping the bouquet of flowers with his pure white handkerchief, he took my hands and placed the bouquet in them. “Au revoir, jolie dame,” he said, as he smiled and walked away.
As soon as he walked away, I found myself walking back the way I came, as if I was driven by an unknown force. I stopped when I saw the familiar benches of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and sunk down onto one of them in relief. After that bizarre experience, I wanted to go home as soon as possible. Hoping that I would not get lost looking for the exit, I looked down to my left hand for the museum map, when I noticed that I was holding onto a handkerchief for dear life. The flowers, it seemed, had gotten lost (or more possibly died off) in time, and all that was left to remember the man by was this handkerchief, which had yellowed around the borders from age. I hurried to put the cloth away when something caught my eye – a black scribble, no, something was stitched into the cloth. I squinted, trying to make sense of the scribbles the black threads formed, when I finally saw it.
Claude Monet.
The young man I met in the painting was none other than the artist himself.
