Two women in the lake part 1

Mia sets the brush, hesitates, steps back and narrows her eyes a little. She tilts her head to look at the entire painting. With a solid line, it places the turquoise blue and gives the water surface its lively structure. The quiet rhythm of their work shows that they are increasingly satisfied with the result. Finally, she sits down on the stool, crosses her arms over her chest, lets her eyes rest on the picture for a long time, loses itself in it. It is quiet.

Normally there is the lively activity of the art students of Professor Caspars class. But at night the academy is a quiet place where Mia can concentrate on herself and her paintings. The light is not good, but it takes them to work undisturbed. It took several months until she found out how it is possible for her to paint. She had only to follow the facts she had had in her home country. There she was only able to sleep at night, when everyone else slept. Then she was able to pursue it undisturbed, which was of essential importance to her and was a cause of mockery and anxiety for her family. Painting pictures on which you could not see everything exactly, that made no sense in her eyes! And certainly not for a young woman, who should look for a man and turn to housekeeping.

Immediately after the end of the school, she was able to escape the misunderstandings and daily struggles by starting the art studies in Munich. On the day when she was given the responsibility for the preparation and follow-up of the painting class and thus obtained the key for the rooms, she was given the opportunity to work again at night.

“Under the pale lighting of the room, the lake is a bit gloomy,” Mia muses, but tomorrow, in daylight, it will certainly be as I would like it to be. “Mia takes her work critical once again Shore in the structure of the stones something that she still wants to change. With a light gray she begins to lighten the rock on the sun-lit side. Her gaze sweeps over the entire image to check the angle of incidence of the sun. The brush rests on the rock, she looks at the mountains in the background, her thoughts lead her back to the unshakable summer in which she had enjoyed this view. Into the sight, Mia does not notice how the brush slowly sinks into the rock. Deeper and deeper he disappears in the canvas. Only when her fingers seem to fuse with the canvas and disappear in the picture does she draw attention to it. Frightened, she withdraws her hand, as if she were a foreign object. Her breathing goes quickly, she turns and turns her hand. Is she so tired that she is already beginning to see strange things? The curiosity prevails and she tries again, if the brush can disappear in the canvas. Indeed! When she lasts long in one place, the brush sinks into the canvas and her hand follows him seamlessly. This time she does not pull back, but watches her arm disappear to the elbow. In the meantime, she grapples with the thought of how to explain it and where it leads, but she lets him pass by and sink into the picture bit by bit.

Mia finds herself on the beach of the lake. She leaned against the rock she had just worked with the light gray and looked over the water, in the background the mountains. The prospect that she had internalized so last summer so as to ease the homesickness in the big city. She turns around, no, she is not only in the picture or in front of the picture, she is actually in this place. She cautiously feels as if she does not believe herself to be genuine, rubs her eyes, feels the stony ground beside her. Everything is real, she is here in her picture.

This experience is a few weeks ago. Mia has discovered that she can go not only in her own pictures, but also in those of other painters. And she has found out that she can use the brush to find the exit again. It can not explain the phenomenon. However, since an explanation would not change the process, it is not important to look for it. Of course she did not tell anyone about it. Who would believe such crazy things? She knows this from her own family: if she does not want to be exposed to the mockery of others, she has to keep certain things to herself.

Even in the academy, it seems to be important not to talk about some things. The discussion about the so-called “degenerate art” strongly supports all, but especially its professor. Among other things, his pictures and his post as head of the academy. Some artists, who had studied in these rooms not so long ago, are mentioned only behind the hand, and others are criticized openly. The horror in the face of her professor when she presented him with a few sketches and a small oil painting by Johann Reichinger was unmistakable. She had found her a few days ago when cleaning up in a shelf and wanted to know where such things would be kept. Hastily he had taken the works, looked quickly, and dragged Mia into the chamber next to the classroom. He made sure that no one was watching and hid the pictures behind the cabinet. “I’ll take care of it on occasion. Until then, no word of it! To no one! “, He had hissed softly and gave her a warning look.
A few days after this event, there is great excitement in the academy. People run through each other and carry boxes out of the building. “They’re taking everything,” she whispers to a fellow student. “Like everything?”. Annoyed, they whispered, “Well, all the things they consider degenerate. And now do as if everything were as always! “

Nothing is as usual! Professor Caspar is no longer in the house, and a certain Bestelmeyer is to be the new leader. Kari listens like a student to the other: “Now, then, national socialism has also arrived with us.” She remembers the conversation the other day, how the art evolves when works by Barlach, Dix, Marc, Reichinger and many others. At that time it was still a discussion, today it is terrible, close to reality.

Mia goes into her class. She tries to work routinely and normally, so she does not notice how defensively she faces this event. Until this morning, she had hoped that political thought, though twisted and abstruse, would stop before the arts, and she could keep her safe place of retreat in the academy before narrow thoughts and regulations. It has been known for quite some time that people who think differently and are not tolerated by the current ideology. The fact that people who live differently and believe can have difficulties as a child has already experienced in their village community. But what she is experiencing today and what consequences it will have for her and her friends, she seems to be far too big and comprehensive at the moment to be able to think it over.

She is standing in the small chamber with a glass of water in her hand, trembling, trying to calm herself. Her gaze falls on the cabinet and the glass almost from the hand. Had Caspar looked after the sketches of Reichinger? Or…? Can she now take a look and look at the house full of people? And when they are still there, what shall they do? Reply with quote No way! Like a reflex, she meets this reaction. Actually, she is apolitical, she only wants to live her own life in freedom and hoped that this would be possible in the big city in the world of artists. But now everything is different. Now it is forbidden, which does not fit to the prescribed thought, because it is too naked, too little realistic, too Christian, too liberal, somehow not Aryan enough. No, if the pictures are still there, they will try to save them. Yes if. Only now, when the house is in a state of excitement, strangers move through the workshops and classes is not to think of risking anything. So continue as if nothing were.

At the end of the day, Mia can not remember how she spent the hours until the evening. Actually, there was only one thought loop: ‘Normal, although everything is abnormal, even though you want to run away, although you are terribly worried about how to go with you and the others!’ And if she could look at her work on the screen they cry. From the living, deep water of the past, has become a lifeless, mirror-slit disc in which neither a further thought, nor joy in nature is to be discovered. ‘Totgemalt’, comes to her mind. Fitting to this day. Will the prohibition of free expression lead to an inner death?