Watchmakers' Gallery

Watchmakers' Gallery

By Gabriel Chess

Many of the students gathered beside the lecturer for the first session of the tour. They were not precisely many, for they were just a few, but those were precisely the entire class. All whom endeavored in a path of the eternal to bring meaning to things that had no intrinsic meaning. For say, time. Time had no meaning until one was provided to it. And because of this we learned how to gain more of it, giving the students consensual benefit of eternity. Which must not be filled with meaningless, but with the element of concrete significance.

In this class – and in every class –, among the students there was – and always will be – a slow one, the anxious one. 

‘Gather, fellow ones, as we may enter the gallery.’ 

‘Professor, why the Watchmakers need this gallery?’ 

‘We do not.’ 

‘So what is the point of gather if there is no motive to build or even enter the gallery?’ 

‘There is no need, but sure there is motive.’ 

‘What is the motive?’ 

‘To appreciate, for this is motive behind galleries.’ 

‘Does appreciation act as an objective aspect of being a Watchmaker?’ 

‘Objective, no. Ludic, for sure.’ 

The lecturer initiates his speech, explaining the true approach behind the gallery. 

‘Here we expose images, for we must observe to give meaning.’ 

‘Then every asset here exposed have no meaning yet?’ 

‘Precisely. That is the way it is. Here we search for meaning, and when a meaning is assigned to an asset, it no longer belongs to the gallery.’ 

‘When after the gallery, where it belongs?’ 

‘The universe, of course. Meaning is what makes us, us.’ 

Time flowed, meanings were assigned to pictures and pictures were removed. The slow one, shocked – for he was still young minded –, draws the attention of the class to the lonely painting at the gallery’s end corner. 

‘Professor, how can it be? Sure someone must have equivocated this place.’ 

‘And why is that?’ 

‘A painting is not a document. How can we learn to assign meaning if the object of our observation cannot be trusted?’ 

‘How would someone photograph something beyond the physical; beyond stars with no names and beings with no labels and things with no context?’ 

The slow one silenced his own words. The lecturer continued. 

‘What can we see portrayed here?’ 

‘A bared back person, covered with a sheet…’ 

‘Anything else draws your curiosity?’ 

‘The person is crying away.’ 

‘Meaning, sometimes, do not fit with documentation but only with imagination. Feelings must have meaning or solid things cannot have neither.’ 

Time flowed and all pictures were removed. The painting remained. 

‘Professor, how old is the painting?’ 

‘Older.’ 

‘Could anyone present meaning to it? Could it be possible?’ 

‘That I cannot tell, for I also have no answer. Perhaps the gallery will remain eternal, fueled with that one image. Perhaps it will remain forever portrayed and meaningless. With just a title as hint.’ 

The slow one reads the title with a sad resigned tone. 

‘A Lover’s Departure.’