The Painting of the Bridge

Underneath this portrait
There's a painting of a bridge

It's not a particularly nice bridge
But it is a bridge, all the same

It covers a small river
A stream, really

It's a covered bridge
And there's lot of foliage around it
Plants and things

A nice little painting

Worth seven million dollars

You see, the original artist
Was a man named Walter Westcott

Yes, THAT Walter Westcott

And his paintings of bridges
Of which there are now only four in the world
Sell between four and six million dollars at auction

This painting, however
Is a special painting

This painting was the FIRST painting he ever did
Of a bridge

And it's become the Holy Grail
Of the art world

And my father
Painted over it

Well, I should probably backtrack a little bit

Before my father painted over
The Painting of the Bridge
Dante Disono painted over it

He was an Italian, obviously, Dante Disono
And he was in love with a woman
Named Moira O'Kelly, not Italian, obviously
And he painted her
To show her father
How much he loved her
So that he could acquire the father's blessing
For them to be married

Dante and Moira, not Dante and Moira's father, obviously

It worked
He saw the portrait of his daughter
Through the eyes of the man who loved her
And he gave his blessing

Moira became The Painting of the Bridge
And it was, most likely, a beautiful portrait

Then, twenty years later
Moira's portrait was painted over
By a young man

His mother was dying
And he wanted to paint her
He wanted a memory
Etched in the canvas

And he didn't know about Moira
And he didn't know about the painting on the bridge
And he didn't know much about art

The painting of Moira
Was given to the young man's mother
Probably by a distant relative of the Disono-O'Kelly's
And it hung on a wall
In the mother's house
Until she took ill
And then the son took it down
And began to paint her

He applied the last stroke
Just as she was taking her last breath

In that moment
She became The Painting of the Bridge

And then my father painted over her

I was three years old
And my mother was--is--a doctor
So my father, the artist
Has the luxury of BEING an artist, full-time
But he also had the luxury
Of watching me as a baby
Until I was old enough to go to school

Since my father is one of those
'I paint what I see' artists
And since when you're watching a three-year-old
All you see is the three-year-old
Or you risk LOSING the three-year-old
On a regular basis

He painted me

It's not a fantastic painting
Certainly not my father's best work
But there is a definite...affection there

In the way he uses light
The color palette he chose
The expression he's having me portray

I doubt I ever made that particular face
I was a surly child
I took after my mother

But my father painted me as this joyful gift
The perfect child
That was how he saw me

He made me a piece
Of this lineage
Of this masterpiece

He made me art

I was his Painting on the Bridge

And this was how a great work was destroyed

Even if the other layers could be peeled back
The Painting of the Bridge
Could never have its original value back

And yet somehow, I feel
And I don't feel this way as an Art History professor
This is not a professional opinion, but--

I sort of feel
That it's better

That it's become more than it was
Even though, what it was
Was worth seven million dollars

I see two people in love
I see a son commemorating his dying mother
I see a man with a young son trying to capture a childhood

And I see a covered bridge
A simple covered bridge
Protecting travelers
From both the river
And the sky

And I feel that, as only true works of art are--

This painting
Is priceless