Everything wants to turn white and cream and frothy and feminine. Everything wants to be magical and fantastical and girly.

There is this darker aesthetic here in front of me, that is MALE MALE MALE, and heavy, the froth of the Baroque hasn’t happened yet, and I think it would be helpful to draw some versions.

Dark, gothic, 16^th c male

Light, frothy, 18^th c female

It may be the influence of Orlando

and Amadeus.

Where do I put those lips?

Either way, that neon coral/orange is definitely going to make an appearance.

What is the desire to include Eastern elements? There’s nothing here that indicates that… or spiritual… I guess I’m grappling with the idea of inspiration.

Does it ultimately matter to quote your source of inspiration, or can it just act as a spark, a momentary igniting of an idea that is then all my own?

Where will all of these words go?

Today I saw women walking thru the space carrying black totem pole walking sticks. Fully clothed. With the neon cornice on the wall. And the embossed cones lacquered

Black.

I also saw everything white & cream, blond hair everywhere, and the cow heads Origamied on hanging neon orange & cheesecloth strings

I don’t know what any of it means.

Cow heads w/ lace big blown up pictures, even my rabbit somehow incorporated.

He is so stiff, severe, aloof, and all the black & dark has something to do with this, and all the cream & froth is a feminine wildly feminine assertion against all of this, but I’m stuck in the middle as I’m both, and after seeing Orlando as a man for a few centuries, when he shows up as a female in the 18^th c., even though it is Tilda Swinton and even though she’s a female, you can help but feel you are looking at a man in very elaborate drag. Artistically & conceptually, this is the equivalent feeling I have right now, with these ideas.

A bowl of gold rings & beads

A procession

The frame is carved wood painted gold.

It is the closest looking thing to what I’m thinking of for the cone sculptures.

He looks skinny today, and young, and smaller than I remember.

1:23pm.

The Drawings of Bronzino – talk for Museum staff. February 23, 2010.

à look @ painted portraits for textures & patterns

Drawings seem to echo my idea of realizing a part rather than a whole – sketched out torso, finished head.

Sketched out human form, finely finished drapery

1503 – near Florence

1572 – in Florence

entered Pontormo’s studio 1518

worked alongside him for 40 years

v. controlled tonal scale in drwgs,

à drwgs – real, intimate modeling, outlines

à in finished ptgs

models become idealized

abstracted,

heroicized

Portrait of a Young Man

(look at portrait drwgs for sleeve treatments)

drastic reworking of ear & neck

Chapel of Eleonora di Toledo

Mannerist artists not held in high regard

Manner, style

Complex compositions

Deliberately ornamental

Human form extravagance

In contrast to almost minimalist style of this time.

Justice Liberating Innocence

Seated male

Nude – pose?

Uffizi drwg

Fig studies/poses

Look @ these pages

for ideas.

“The nude in my opinion is the most beautiful & perhaps the most difficult…”

- Bronzino

Advice to use black chalk, because it can be removed – blended with a soft, moist breadcrumb.

March 1, 2010. 1:00pm.

They’ve changed your caption for the special exhibition.

Looking rather orange today, chap.

I spent the whole weekend watching the PBS documentary of the Medici’s “Godfathers of the Renaissance.”

So far, you haven’t come up once.

But, there’s one episode to go.

When was this painted?

I can’t recall ___________

1534-1538

I have a strong desire to look at the drwgs today

But first: what would happen if they hung the ptg @ eye level?

I always thought the young man was larger than life, but now I feel like his head is

Maybe and his hands are smaller, although they get smaller the more I move away. I mean, he looks larger than life right in front, and 8 feet away, sl. smaller than life.

I’m thinking abt

Michelangelo and his penchant for sculptural-looking painting, and the lack of brushstrokes, and the strange pose, and the sculptural quality of his face. It’s the first time I’ve wanted to see him nude, or even acknowledged there is a body under that magnificent attire.

All you really see is face and hands, everything else is covered.

I remember feeling surprised when I realized he has blond hair – I assumed it was brown, darker, because his hat cast such a shadow on it.

I’m thinking abt what Atif said last week abt how he is lit – I mentioned all the darkness and how I feel almost a compulsion to respond with lightness, and he mentioned the intense almost beam of light that illuminates his face & hands.

His skin is almost translucent in the light, showing blue blood underneath. The X-radiograph and infrared reflectogram show disfigured versions of you. It’s funny that at one point you had a pair of gloves tucked into your codpiece.

I didn’t really see the codpiece or the mask in your breeches clearly until today.

March 22, 2010. 1pm.

I’m a fellow painter now…