such a sensation now, a next to impossible job. The only coherent thought he could muster on the subject was: “There is something subtly wrong with that picture.”
Suddenly he had the answer. It came in a second, as if revealed by some hidden source of insight. Perhaps his recent stay on the moon helped the idea to form; it had a relationship to things he had experienced there. It brought to mind the cinder plains that had never felt the foot of man. The sensation could be expressed by one word— alienness .
In the eternal lifelessness of the silent lunar wastes this sensation had a place. But how did it get into the polite autumn landscape? What twist in the mind of the painter enabled him to capture this strange feeling on canvas? Brent cursed himself softly. This wasn’t a painting of an alien landscape. It was an Autumn in the Woods landscape painted by a man who didn’t understand his topic. A man with an odd way of looking at things. A painter who could look at the bustling life of a fall day and capture the eternal death of a lifeless satellite.
Brent leaned forward on his cane, his heart beating in tempo with his swirling thoughts. He had to find this artist. He would talk to him, reason with him—beat him if necessary … he must find out the man’s secret. The thought of his coming death sat like a cold black weight in his body. To die without knowing how to capture that sensation on canvas!
He had killed himself searching for it—to no avail. Yet all the time here on Earth was the man who had the knowledge he sought. The bitter irony of it swirled his head with madness.
The insane thoughts seeped away slowly. He sat on the couch until he was rested enough to trust himself on his feet. He had to find the man.
Down in the right hand corner of the picture in the shadow of a rock was the signature, Arthur Di Costa, printed with wide, sweeping strokes.