Artist Unknown was originally published in Children of the Sky, which is now out of print. I really love this story and want to share it. Please enjoy this tale of aliens and mysterious paintings.
Artist Unknown
by Jennifer Lee Rossman
Gustav's Pocket Watch had hung in the Gallerie d'Arte for decades before its theft, its provenance dating back to the Dutch Golden Age of the seventeenth century. During its life, it adorned the walls of kings and presidents, was seen by millions, and had its brushstrokes scrutinized to identify its artist.
And in all that time, no one ever really looked at it.
They saw it from across grand gilded halls, from behind velvet ropes, or through a microscope. But if they knew it like I did, stared at it night after night until they could describe every detail by heart, it would change the world.
In a palette of rust and gold, Gustav's Pocket Watch depicts a man—presumably Gustav, though a museum curator named it after an uncle and its real name is not known—bent over a workbench. The clarity of his tools, his clothes, even the cobwebs strung between his chair legs, are reminiscent of a photograph. The face, serene but determined, is beyond description in its perfectly human imperfections.
He holds a pocket watch in his right hand, consulting it to see how long until he sees his beloved, or any of a thousand other theories people have suggested as to his thoughts in this captured moment of time.
Art critics debated the meaning of the watch, the symbolism of the time shown on it... but they never noticed the reflection in the watch's glass.
***
I walked the halls every night with my sweeping flashlight beam, pausing now and then to admire the art. It was better at night. Quiet, empty, only the dimmest of lights. My own private museum.
Each painting had a little plaque beside it with information about the artist. Gustav's was just two words: "Artist unknown."
Those two words held so much mystery. Is it by one of the masters? A Vermeer or Rembrandt? Or was it the single masterpiece of someone tragically unknown to history?
I always took the time to stop and look at Gustav's, more so than any other piece. How could we not know who created this? Why didn't they sign it?
The night I noticed the reflection started like all my nights. I came in as the last patrons filtered out, punched in, and began my rounds when the lights went out.
I don't know what drew my eyes to the watch. I'd seen it a thousand times but it was as if they'd gone in and added something so obvious that I couldn't believe I'd ever missed it.
The curve of the watch's glass distorted the figure, and even stepping beyond the ropes and putting my face right up to the canvas didn't help. I knew better than to risk damage the painting with direct light, so I refrained from using my flashlight and waited until morning to investigate further.
I hung around when the day guys relieved me, and as soon as the gift shop opened I went and bought a print of the painting, all the while knowing I was being ridiculous. It couldn't actually be what it looked like. Just a trick of the light, an optical illusion.
I'd get it home and look at it more closely, and I'd see a reflection of an old coat slung over a chair or something equally mundane.
***
It was definitely not a coat.
I'd cleared my coffee table and spread the print out, using every light and magnifying glass I owned. I'd examined it for an hour, hoping for a coat because the alternative frightened me.
But there was nothing else it could be.
I understood how people had missed it. A small part of a painting only two feet high, the black eyes kind of disappeared among the Roman numerals, and you had to squint to really see it. But my god, once you saw it the rest of the painting fell away into insignificant slashes of color.
Because reflected in Gustav's pocket watch, tiny but clear as a photograph, was a little gray alien.
***
First thought: The painting has been stolen and replaced with a really good quality forgery, and the forger added the alien as sort of a joke or signature.
So to the Internet I go, my heart pounding. Have I just uncovered an art heist? How long have we been looking at a fake and not known?
An image search comes up with photos from when the Gallerie obtained the painting in the sixties. Not the best quality, but in a promotional poster that duplicated the painting larger than life, I can see something there. If it's a forgery, it's an old one.
Second thought: That can't possibly be an alien. People didn't believe in aliens—not the little gray take-me-to-your-leader X-Files type, anyway—in the 1600s. So I'm seeing something mundane, but because I think it's an alien, my brain refuses to see the pile of clock parts or the faithful dog or whatever.
The Internet proves helpful in this regard, as well. I post a cropped picture to social media—just the face of the watch without context. On some sites I turn it sideways or upside down, just to see what happens. I title them all "What do you see in the reflection?"
I go to bed, but sleep eludes me and I end up staring at the random specks in the ceiling tiles, telling myself I'm imagining it.
The specks form shapes. A moose, a penguin, a screaming mermaid.
The human mind wants to find order in chaos. We see faces on Mars, men in the moon, warriors in the stars...
I cover my face with my hands and groan. Why do all of my examples have to involve space?
I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I know, it's late afternoon and my alarm clock is screaming at me to get up and go to work.
Maybe working nights is messing with my mind. No rational person would actually spend this much time and energy wondering if an old painting shows an extraterrestrial.
And there must be no rational people on the Internet, because the picture has blown up.
"It's ET!"
"Alien."
"I don't see anything?"
"Why is the picture of an alien upside down? Is this a test?"
They're calling it the next "The Dress," that photo of a dress that went viral when people argued what color it was. Except there isn't much of an argument—some see nothing, but the overwhelming majority see an alien. No one suggests an alternative.
I can't help but laugh. It isn't just me.
***
Every chance I get, I check on the steadily growing sensation. Thousands, maybe millions, are talking about it. A few dedicated art historians discuss what painting it was based on, but other than correctly guessing the Dutch Golden Age, they don't make much progress.
My footsteps echo in the empty galleries. How many other secrets hide in these frames, just waiting to be discovered?
I stop in front of Gustav's Pocket Watch.
"But what is it?" I say to myself, or maybe the unknown artist. "Why did you put an alien in there? Because it can't be an alien."
What did they have before aliens, before Roswell and popular culture implanted little gray men in our imagination? Demons and fairies and things like that, right?
I spend a lot of time examining the other Dutch Masters surrounding Gustav's Pocket Watch. Looking in every dusty corner of a room, behind every gnarled tree trunk. If there are hidden creatures, I don't see them.
***
By the next night, someone has identified the painting and realized I didn't Photoshop it in. Articles are popping up all over. "Does this 18th century painting prove the existence of aliens!?"
It's 17th century, but whatever.
I expect there'll be a rush of visitors in the morning, and a new investigation into the painting. Maybe this time they'll be able to identify the artist.
A crashing sound rings out through the halls, and every muscle in my body tenses. Great. A break-in. I had to bring attention to the painting, didn't I?
I rush to the east wing, flashlight beam bobbing ahead as it leads the way toward god only knows what. I don't have a weapon—never wanted one until now—but I curl my fingers around my radio like a child with a security blanket. I don't call for backup, just in case a rat knocked down one of the vent covers in the ceiling or something.
As I round the corner, my gaze immediately flicks to Gustav's Pocket Watch. Still there, untouched.
A figure stands before it, a vague silhouette in the dim lights. It doesn't react to my footsteps, just stays motionless behind the barricades, staring up at the painting like every other patron. Casually, as if he breaks into museums all the time.
He's awfully small. A child? Maybe a very short person; much easier to crawl through the air vents.
I open my mouth to call out to him, but then I notice his head. Big and bulbous, making up almost half his total height. My heart beats faster.
It can't be.
I slowly swing my shaking light toward the figure. Its head is illuminated for half a second before I lose my grip and the heavy flashlight falls to the floor with a clatter.
Its head swivels toward me. Even in the near dark, I can make out those enormous, glassy eyes.
It regards me for a moment, as if deciding whether I'm a threat, and then it bolts.
I retrieve my flashlight and run after it, following the little slap-slap of its bare feet on tile. We pass a ceiling vent on the floor—its entry point, apparently, and the source of the crash I heard—but it keeps going. It chooses halls at random; it doesn't know the layout like I do. Doesn't know it's trapping itself.
I corner it between the closed grate of the gift shop and the temporarily closed Impressionism exhibit. It's huddled against the wall, making a pitiful sound that can only be crying.
"Hey there," I say softly. I don't know if it understands, but this tone of voice works on animals and babies. And hopefully aliens.
Holy...
I'm looking at an alien.
I try to keep my breathing under control. If I hyperventilate and pass out, we won't look too good as a species, will we?
"You okay there, little guy?" Is it even a guy? "Little girl? Little... genderless lifeform? I didn't mean to scare you."
And it does look scared. Terrified. If the old saying "they're more scared of you than you are of them" is true, then my heart goes out to the poor thing because my legs feel weak and I think it's only a matter of time until my stomach empties itself.
The thing—the freaking alien—is curled into the fetal position, rocking back and forth. It peeks between the spindly fingers covering its eyes, and for a second I wonder if it was all a trap, if it's looking at the bigger alien standing behind me.
It has something in its hand. A ray-gun?
But then it scrambles to its feet. Slowly, hesitantly, never breaking eye contact. It blinks and I lower the flashlight beam from its face.
Its body, gray and naked and perfectly smooth, is covered in speckles and smears of color, and it holds up the object as if in offering.
A paintbrush.
I reach out to take it. The alien flinches but makes no attempt to attack. He—it looks like a he—looks up at me expectantly.
"I don't know what you want me to—"
He grabs my hand suddenly and yanks on my arm. I follow, marveling at the way his skin feels like porcelain and glue simultaneously.
He drags me to the Dutch Masters hall, and only now do I notice the tray of paints on the floor in front of Gustav's Pocket Watch, the colors mixed to perfectly match its palette. It's clear what he intended to do.
"No," I say with a nervous laugh. "You can't paint over the alien in the painting."
His little slit of a mouth turns upward in a petulant frown.
"Because that's vandalism. It's against the law, and it's what they hired me to prevent."
It's clear he doesn't understand, though whether it's a language barrier or the concept itself, I can't tell.
"You see," I say, trying again, "if something belongs to you, then you can do whatever you want to it. But this painting is not yours, so you can't."
He makes a disagreeable little grunt and drags me to another painting. A portrait by Frans Hals. Releasing my hand, he ducks under the rope and scales the wall with his sticky hands and feet. I grab him around the waist and pluck him away just before he can touch the canvas.
"No, don't touch the art."
Another dissatisfied grunt, and he points at the signature. He wriggles away and climbs up beside Gustav's, pointing at the alien but keeping his finger from touching the painting. He looks at me to see if his message got through.
I frown. "What, that's your signature?"
Emphatic nodding.
"You painted it?" I try to keep my skepticism out of my voice. I guess it's his size that makes me think of him as a child, but I'm talking to an alien. Is it really such a leap to believe he's been on Earth for a couple hundred years?
As if to prove it, he goes back to his paints, takes the brush from me, and begins painting directly on the floor. I consider stopping him, but don't.
Over the next half hour, he transforms the plain tiles into a gallery of masterpieces. Some are a little roughly done, but it's amazing for the amount of time spent on it.
The paintings tell the story—all in the realistic style of the Dutch Masters—of a distant star going supernova, and of the escape pod that carried the lone survivor to Earth.
"Why Earth?" I ask. "Why you?"
He shrugs.
The pod landed—crashed, really—in the time of the dinosaurs. Ended the dinosaurs. And its sole occupant wandered for millions of years, watching species live and die. He adored humans.
When they still lived in caves, he lived with them. His people had no written language, so he taught the humans how to paint.
But like children outgrowing old toys, humans outgrew him. They learned to read, called him a demon, so he ran away to live in caves and wait for their species to die out like all species did.
When he thought enough time had passed, he emerged. But humans were still alive and thriving, and they had turned his stick figures into some of the most beautiful poetry he had ever seen.
They still feared him, but some people were more friendly. I recognize the next tile as a portrait of Rembrandt. They taught him how to paint, and that a signature represented the artist. Because he had no language, he added his own face to his work before going back into hiding. He observed us, followed our growth as a species, but never showed himself. He can only survive if we don't know he's there.
The last series of tiles show the future. People coming to the Gallerie to see his art, discovering his DNA in the paint, using it to hunt him down.
Poor guy. He just wanted to share his culture with our ungrateful species.
"But you can't just paint over it," I tell him. I show him my phone, though if he's here, he must have seen his painting going viral somehow. "There are pictures of it with your signature, and we can't paint over those. And people will think I did it. I'll lose my job."
I'll have to erase the security tapes, so maybe I'll lose my job either way. And how selfish can I be? I'll lose my job? He may lose his life!
"Look, even if we do it," I reason with him, "art historians are about to stampede in here to examine every inch of that painting. They'll restore it, and they'll see you in it, and they'll hunt you down anyway."
I want to help him. My heart aches for this lonely little spaceman. There's one thing I could do, but it's so risky that I can't believe I'm even considering it.
But he looks up at me, black eyes the size of my fists brimming with tears.
I read the paintings again; it's a tragedy in oils.
"All right," I say. "Cover your ears. Do you have ears? Cover whatever you use to hear with."
He puts his hands over two holes in the sides of his head. Okay, he has ears. Good to know.
I step over the velvet rope, up to Gustav's Pocket Watch and its little plaque that couldn't be more accurate. The alarms start to scream as soon as I touch the frame, bright red lights whipping across the walls.
I pull it down and start for the employee entrance, but the alien isn't with me. He's gone back to clean up his paintings.
"Leave them!" I shout, and shove Gustav's into his arms. "Back door, blue car!"
He toddles off awkwardly, the canvas nearly as tall as he is.
I look at the floor. Good art can change minds. Change the world, even.
With the end of my flashlight, I knock loose the plaque hanging beside the vacant space. I toss it to the floor, where in a few hours it will be discovered beside his greatest work of art. The one that, with any luck, will warm the human race to the idea of his existence.
A stolen painting.
A life story told in images.
The artist unknown.
END
