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Gem of Sphene stood and looked at the painting, scrutinizing it with meticulous, methodical precision. Beside her, Translator Zeiat watched her watching the painting, her expression equally intent.
"No, it's not doing it for me," Sphene said, with a slight curl of her lip.
"Why not?" said Zeiat, eyes unblinking.
"It's just… crass. The overbearing presence of the family, yet with a bare lip service paid to the divine. It’s an image of hubris and vainglory. Quite apart from being obscene."
Zeiat nodded, without looking at the painting. "Hannabo Reivaan was a successful of portrait painter, and her depictions of the elite of Athoek are still highly regarded as collectors' items now," she said, brightly.
Sphene sighed. "Yes, I read the wall panel too. Just because she was popular doesn't mean it's good art. Lots of people have poor taste."
Zeiat nodded slowly. Then she turned her head, looking around the gallery.
"There are rather a lot of other portraits in here," she said.
"I know," Sphene said. "They’re all wretched. At least Reivaan's are well executed, which is more than you can say for most of these."
Zeiat nodded, looking back to Sphene, who tossed her head and walked on.
"Come on, maybe there's something worth seeing through here."
The next gallery had bare walls, recently scraped down to bare metal, and redecorated. Violent swirls of colour adorned them, and the air stank of aerosol paint. Sphene's nose wrinkled.
"An exhibition of Xhai street art from the Undergarden," Zeiat read aloud from the wall panel.
"It's all very honest I suppose," she said, noncommittally.
"What about this one?" Said Zeiat
She pointed to a mural of vivid, pink, six-foot high letters declaring Anaander Mianaai Blows Goats.
"...then again even naïve art can show us some aspect of the divine truth," Sphene said with a shrug and the ghost of a smile.
They walked through to the next gallery. Children sat at a long table covered with paper and pencils and pens and paint, watched over by a single member of the gallery staff with the cheerful but slightly hunted look of someone supervising other people's children.
"What's this?" Sphene said, arms folded.
"This is the maker's station, a chance for kids to get hands on and make their own art," said Zeiat, reading from another wall panel.
Sphene’s brow furrowed in suspicion and her mouth opened to say something biting, but Zeiat had already bustled away over to a child and was leaning over her shoulder.
The child drew one long curving line across the paper. Once she had reached one end, she doubled back and drew a second line, arcing back above the first before curving in until it crossed the first line near where she had started. She connected the two loose ends with a single straight line. She added a dot, near the far point where the two lines met, and a small diagonal line on the lower line. As a finishing touch, she added two triangles, one larger to the upper line, one smaller to the lower line.
"What is that?" Zeiat said.
"It's a fish," said the child.
"Is it the sort of fish one can eat?" Said Zeiat.
The child looked up at her with a look of intense interest.
"I guess," the child said.
Zeiat picked up the paper and, very delicately and without folding it, slipped into her mouth. She turned back to Sphene, away from the child who was already busy drawing another fish. Sphene's expression was as one of exhausted patience.
"You weren't getting much out of just seeing the pictures," Zeiat said. "I thought perhaps this might be a better way of appreciating art."
Sphene's eyebrows raised in surprise, then lowered into a determined furrow.
"I think," she said, with slow deliberation, "we should give the portrait gallery another chance. What do you think?"
Zeiat nodded. From a pocket, she produced a small bottle of fish sauce.