Chapter 24. The Art of War.

March 24, 1944

It was the fifth year of the war, and to me, a twenty-seven-year-old French artist named Eugène Lepetit, it felt as if this war had been going on my entire conscious life. It flowed in my blood, and so, having existed for four full years within the confines of war, I no longer understood what it meant to live without war or how to live without it. This was despite the fact that I had spent twenty-three years of my life in this world without it. At the very hour when countless members of the human race were dying with weapons in their hands on one front or another, I, a French artist, died and was reborn hundreds of times in my paintings on my own front with a brush in my hands. I was just as far removed from the essence, soul, and spirit of war as the urban plebeians and provincial peasants were from the royalists, clergy, and aristocracy during the fire of the French Revolution.

The war, breathing so loudly beside me but not within me, determined only some of the formal peculiarities of my present existence. However, it was in no way capable of influencing the foundational principles of my life. These principles cannot be shattered by flamethrowers or a Panzerfaust if they truly possess an indelible depth and, therefore, truly have the right to be called true and, just as importantly, sincere. I was simply a child of my century, a child of war, a child of art...

Many of those who rather arbitrarily considered themselves followers of the cult of Apollo did not depict reality in their paintings as it appeared in these moments—moments of sorrow, destitution, and death—to my true self. Many facts were deliberately concealed by their brushes, while some that never existed were consciously added to their canvases. In this, they significantly reminded me of the majority of living historians, who, guided by certain goals, intentionally designated, defined, and outlined events as something they never were. I was not like them. While I altered images slightly, I never altered reality. When I saw a homeless, unemployed beggar, who at that very moment with trembling hands was collecting fragments from a recently exploded shell to get at least a few coins to buy a few grams of stale bread, I did not change the essence of the depicted phenomenon. Instead, I gave it an imagined garb and a non-existent face. My nature did not want to eternalize the suffering of a person already continuously tormented by the vicissitudes of life.

My brush did not want to invest special, sacred, or holy meanings into something that was already overflowing with an endless number of ideas. In the mind of a truly maturing person, questions could not help but arise on their own, without cause: Why is he homeless? Why is he unemployed? Why is he destitute? Why is there war on the street? A considerable number of people sought hidden images and messages in my canvases. They looked for them where they were not. They were not able to see them where they were. In the figures, numbers, and faces of the people depicted in my paintings, they looked for certain allusions. With the thoroughness and diligence of a conscientious surgeon slowly studying one of the objects of his future work, they meticulously examined every centimeter, every inch of my works saturated with life's images. Not knowing the essence and depth of art, they never evaluated my works globally, from infinitely distant perspectives... or perhaps never even physically saw them at all. Are not the best paintings in this world those you have never seen in person, because the one who saw has already limited with their perception and consciousness that which was previously infinite to them? Many despised me for such thoughts. In those moments, I felt happier than ever. Insensitive people tirelessly talked to me about feelings. They had no idea that the gray, harsh reality is full of, ablaze with, the chaotic riot of its endless colors. They wanted me to bring this gray world to life with thought and feeling, where the tools would be illusions and fantasies. Did not Mary Shelley bring the lifeless to life? So too, in their opinion, I should, by creating something that differs somewhat from the true reality, bring to life certain images that by their nature are not entirely alive.

But what is the true purpose of creativity? To correspond to visible reality or to correspond to invisible thought and feeling? What is more true from the perspective of creativity: to coldly redraw a lifeless spot of paint, or to emotionally pour paint onto the canvas, thereby giving that spot life in the very way it acquires it in reality? In this, both the first and the second are possible to do with uniquely honed skill...

Now, as I create another of my children, now, as I look at the faces of people fleetingly passing by me, I partly understand the sacred nature of this world, of human society, and of specific, constantly moving people. Feelings transform a person's face just as winds, water, and sun transform the earth's soil.

Here, before my eyes, a young girl has appeared. How should I depict her? As she is? Or should I change her appearance, clothing, and age? But... her real image, coarse due to life within the confines of war, is at this moment less soulful than the one that now appears in my imagination—the image of the sweet and gentle nineteen-year-old Alexandra. However, within the confines of war, would you really meet a tender and sweet image of anyone? Is that not a deception? Is that not a lie? How am I different from those I despise—from those who despise me?

But... but I am bound by a vow—to depict her in my works wherever one of the images is a woman. It seems that amidst this gray chaos, I must depict some kind of bright spot! Alexandra! Again, her! Why did I remember her?! The more I burn, the more she grows cold to me. The more I grow cold to her, the more she burns! This is a fatal connection! Her appearance in my life, despite the initial peace and tranquility, was marked by a mighty explosion. It simultaneously destroyed everything, while creating a new world order in my soul. Being a destroyer, she was at the same time a creator. She was a God to me, the alpha and omega, the beginning and the end. An explosion! This is how new universes and new worlds are born in this world! Dozens, hundreds of unusually lovely women showered me with their exceptional attention and gentle treatment. I did not dedicate a single painting to any of them. To her alone, who refused me reciprocity, I dedicated hundreds of canvases. Why did she have such an effect on me? Who is she and why does she possess this destructive power? During our first meeting, which was an embodiment of peace and tranquility, I felt so good beside her that I felt a certain rejection of her. In our world, not everything can be so perfect, and so I began to be wary of her. After a while, I realized her power over me. With the regularity of sunrise and sunset, she undermined the deep foundations of my soul, like a gold prospector who uses dynamite in a cave that contains gold. My feelings for her would flare up in an instant, and then—in an instant—they would die out. It was cyclical, like a sound loop, for this relationship, confined within a circle, had no continuation, yet it also had no properties of an end. It was a kind of ouroboros that fed not on its own flesh, but on its own emotions...