The Artist’s Success
I forgot to tell you that the story of the painting of an Italian wedding is not finished. There is more to the tale as I discovered in doing additional research in my story mind.
Guliani, the artist who did the painting, left the area three days after the wedding when he delivered the painting to Sophia and Tonne’s house and went on his way north toward Rome. Although he didn’t realize it, someone was following him. It was Orna. In just a short period of time, while Guliani was finishing the painting, Orna had decided that she was meant to be for Guliani.
Now what did that mean? In Orna’s mind, it meant that she was going to marry this Guliani fellow and stop living the lifestyle of a nun. What about Guliani? Well, in modern vernacular, he was what one would call a nerd, a shy nothing, who could paint better than most people but who had never made any kind of lira income, had never had any girlfriends, and couldn’t even remember who his biological parents were. In two words, Guliani was a wandering nothing.
Orna had great plans for Guliani, and it wasn’t until the second day that she caught up with him as they walked to Rome. She had changed her garb to a simple orange skirt and white blouse and a sunbonnet to ward off the hot sun during the long hours she spent on the road trying to meet up with Guliani.
Her first words to him were, “I want to marry you and live a normal life.” Guliani was aghast. Who would want to marry an artist who carried just a knapsack with colored pencils, paper, oils, and some personal toiletries—a person like himself, with no formal education, family, money, job prospects, and so many more personal deficits?
Orna said to Guliani, “Together we will build everything for the better of both of us, devoting ourselves to the other for personal development.” So in the next town they went to the local priest and were married. Then they vowed to start immediately on their personal improvement journey.
Guliani quickly took out scissors in his knapsack and attacked Orna’s hair, which from being a long, dark, and dirty mess became truly a cut that a modern-day stylist would be envious of. Her new hairstyle fell softly around her face. Guliani then further opened his knapsack and placed Orna on a huge bolder on the side of the road. He withdrew some oil and painted some lovely animal designs on her orange skirt. Again with his scissors he slit each side of the skirt to reveal Orna’s shapely legs. He then painted her white blouse with designs of tulips, orchids, and begonias. What a change in Orna—from a nun’s perspective to a shapely farm girl with nice legs and now a happy smile on her face.
At the first town they came to Orna, with the money she had brought, rented a small studio with living quarters in the back. The next morning Guliani set up his easel outside the studio with a sign that proclaimed: “Italy’s greatest wedding artist.” People at first laughed as they walked by, and this attitude continued for about one week.
Into the second week, the mayor of the town stopped by to ask if Guliani might be interested in painting the scene of his daughter’s wedding that was to take place the following week. Having been well coached by his wife, Guliani said he would be pleased to do so, but that all financial arrangements would have to be made with Orna, as she was the real brains of their family.
The mayor and Orna reached an agreement, and after the wedding painting had been completed, the mayor was so pleased by everything that had occurred at the wedding that he had the painting exhibited in the city hall. Everyone in the town then became aware of Guliani’s artistic skills.
This publicity led to many wedding party paintings and, of course, more and more earnings and fame for Guliani. Soon, he and Orna moved to Rome where his fame had spread and where the couple opened the largest art studio in town, not only displaying his paintings, but also those of more famous landscape and portrait painters of the time.