That which begins with infatuation ends inevitably in repulsion. No one knows this golden rule better than my wounded friend Currado Malaspina
But he has only himself to blame.
If one claimed the right to successive grand passions it would seem like an act of emotional avarice. Complete love visits a man but once if it deigns to visit him at all. Most of us are fools who spend their lives ignoring the stars until finally settling on a mate out of simple fatigue. A few of us stay keen to the senses and with generous hearts find the imperishable romance of fairy tales.
Luckily, this last group is so rare it spares us the agony of our envy.
Malaspina met the love of his life either too early or too late.
Twenty-two years his junior, Aimée Bûcherie was a dazzling beauty. When she stood beside the grizzled Malaspina she was often mistaken for his niece. As unlikely as it seemed on the surface, their relationship was a locked room of perfect compatibility.
Those of us who indulged the needy, neurotic French artist did so out of loyalty and rarely out of affection. None of us in our small circle of friends could quite fathom what this brilliant and vivacious young woman saw in our old petulant painter.
But love is blind, or some other equally annoying cliché must have accounted for his incredible good fortune.
Maybe we were simply jealous for in Aimée we all recognized our own unrequited fantasies and with a degree of meanness only artists seem capable of achieving we all secretly hoped for disaster.
Our prayers were soon answered.
As is well known, the imagery in most of Currado's work is completely void of subtlety.
It is less well-known that Currado, despite the awkward, cartoonish nature of his drawing, always insists on working with live models.
He rarely uses professionals preferring to harvest compliant women through chance encounters in barrooms and cafés.
Aimée worked full-time as a coordinateur de projet in a mid-size government department in the 7th arrondissement. She was known for her diligence and dependability and always put in her full 35-hour week. Currado could set his watch by her comings and goings and always made sure to wrap up his work by 4 o'clock so he could go the the vegetable market and the butcher shop before Aimée returned home.
On the one day - feeling the early symptoms of what later developed into a nasty grippe - that she returned home early, Malaspina was working on the very piece that had made him the bête noire of polite French society.
... and was using himself as the male motif.
But he has only himself to blame.
If one claimed the right to successive grand passions it would seem like an act of emotional avarice. Complete love visits a man but once if it deigns to visit him at all. Most of us are fools who spend their lives ignoring the stars until finally settling on a mate out of simple fatigue. A few of us stay keen to the senses and with generous hearts find the imperishable romance of fairy tales.
Luckily, this last group is so rare it spares us the agony of our envy.
Malaspina met the love of his life either too early or too late.
 |
| Aimée Bûcherie on the rocks, date unknown |
Twenty-two years his junior, Aimée Bûcherie was a dazzling beauty. When she stood beside the grizzled Malaspina she was often mistaken for his niece. As unlikely as it seemed on the surface, their relationship was a locked room of perfect compatibility.
But love is blind, or some other equally annoying cliché must have accounted for his incredible good fortune.
Maybe we were simply jealous for in Aimée we all recognized our own unrequited fantasies and with a degree of meanness only artists seem capable of achieving we all secretly hoped for disaster.
Our prayers were soon answered.
As is well known, the imagery in most of Currado's work is completely void of subtlety.
It is less well-known that Currado, despite the awkward, cartoonish nature of his drawing, always insists on working with live models.
He rarely uses professionals preferring to harvest compliant women through chance encounters in barrooms and cafés.
Aimée worked full-time as a coordinateur de projet in a mid-size government department in the 7th arrondissement. She was known for her diligence and dependability and always put in her full 35-hour week. Currado could set his watch by her comings and goings and always made sure to wrap up his work by 4 o'clock so he could go the the vegetable market and the butcher shop before Aimée returned home.
On the one day - feeling the early symptoms of what later developed into a nasty grippe - that she returned home early, Malaspina was working on the very piece that had made him the bête noire of polite French society.
 |
| La visite de la Plombier, Curado Malaspina, 1994 |
... and was using himself as the male motif.
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