Nature is breath-taking. Skies a calming tint of baby blue with wispy white clouds lazily drifting away. Refreshingly green leaves basking under the sun while swaying to the morning breeze. And scattered around the shrubbery were roses of a striking red hue.
But the roses weren’t just red in colour. It had a majestic undertone to it. A beautiful undertone that sadly no other eyes could see. I’ve tried explaining it to friends and family but to no avail. It was just red, red and more red to them. I was even made fun of for seeing a colour that appears to be non-existent to mankind. After all the tormenting I’ve went through, I made the decision to simply bottle all of these up. I have to admit, it’s a shame having to keep such a ground-breaking discovery all to myself. Well, to be fair, no one else could see, let alone appreciate that brilliant colour. A colour I call visalia. For it was in the City of Visalia that I first saw traces of it.
I’ve lived my life spotting visalia amongst the bushes, up in the trees and even on muddy ground. I started to believe that it was a colour of Nature and that us Man would never be able to recreate it.
I was wrong.
Five years later, at the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC, I stumbled across it. I saw visalia. But this time round, it wasn’t part of Nature. It wasn’t on the leaves of the potted plants lining up to the entrance nor was it on the flowers that graced the façade of the gallery.
It was on a painting.
Woman with a Parasol- Madame Monet and Her Son.
A simple yet delicate oil painting by Claude Monet of his wife and son enjoying a stroll in the park. Not a single speck of the colour black could be seen on this prized painting of his for he only used the lights and darks of Nature to bring his masterpiece to life.
And of course, visalia- the dazzling colour of Nature that I thought no one else could see.
But here it was, right in front of me. Recreated on a painting.
This time round however, it was far from beautiful.
Scrawled across Madame Monet’s veil was a terrifying two-liner message in visalia.
“If you can see this, hide…
…they’re coming for us.”
If you wish to read more on Claude Monet and his painting titled Woman with a Parasol- Madame Monet and Her Son, here’s a link to get you started!
http://totallyhistory.com/woman-with-a-parasol/
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