[MD] Art and meaning

[X Acto]

He took his shirt off and wadded it in his hands. He was covered with Illustrations 
from the blue tattooed ring about his neck to his belt line.
 
    “It keeps right on going,” he said, guessing my thought. 
“All of me is Illustrated. Look.” He opened his hand. On his 
palm was a rose, freshly cut, with drops of crystal water 
among the soft pink petals. I put my hand out to touch it, 
but it was only an Illustration.
 
    As for the rest of him, I cannot say how I sat and stared, 
for he was a riot of rockets and fountains and people, in such 
intricate detail and color that you could hear the voices 
murmuring small and muted, from the crowds that inhabited his body. 
When his flesh twitched, the tiny mouths flickered, the tiny 
green-and-gold eyes winked, the tiny pink hands gestured. 
There were yellow meadows and blue rivers and mountains and 
stars and suns and planets spread in a Milky Way across his chest. 
The people themselves were in twenty or more odd groups upon his 
arms, shoulders, back, sides, and wrists, as well as on the 
flat of his stomach. You found them in forests of hair, 
lurking among a constellation of freckles, or peering from 
armpit caverns, diamond eyes aglitter. Each seemed intent 
upon his own activity; each was a separate gallery portrait.
 
    “Why, they’re beautiful!” I said.
 
    How can I explain about his Illustrations? If El Greco had painted 
miniatures in his prime, no bigger than your hand, infinitely detailed, 
with all his sulphurous color, elongation, and anatomy, perhaps he might 
have used this man’s body for his art. The colors burned in three 
dimensions. They were windows looking in upon fiery reality. Here, 
gathered on one wall, were all the finest scenes in the universe; the 
man was a walking treasure gallery. This wasn’t the work of a cheap 
carnival tattoo man with three colors and whisky on his breath. This was 
the accomplishment of a living genius, vibrant, clear, and beautiful.
 
    “Oh yes,” said the Illustrated Man. “I’m so proud of my Illustrations 
that I’d like to burn them off. I’ve tried sandpaper, acid, a knife . . .”
 
    The sun was setting. The moon was already up in the East.
 
    “For, you see,” said the Illustrated Man, “these Illustrations predict the future."
 
 
The Illustrated man  by Ray Bradbury
 
 
 
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