November 20, 2009. 12:42pm.

Last week, I visited the restored Velazquez in Paintings Restoration several times, in order to accurately assess the color for a postcard we are working on. Velazquez Restored:

It has called into question my earlier comments abt color choices à after seeing the vast change that occurred in the Spanish painter’s portrait, I can no longer consider Bronzino to be the author of the Neo Rauch lips, but instead, time itself. Now I look at the young man and project a certain dullness to his eyes, shoddiness to his coat, a depression and murkiness that has set into the background, see a layer of varnish, a thick slab of glass, and feel I could be shocked by the potential brightness of the original. Maybe that’s overstating it, but I do think of the Sistine Chapel.

There is a small light in his eyes, but could it have been brighter before, numbed over by 400 years of waiting, patiently? Possible.

Today’s Friday, there’s a tour group looking at the Raphael, a few works down.

What do we have today… The gargoyle on the armchair looks like a delectable piece of milk chocolate. I think he’s looking off to the side, in the same direction as the gaze of our young man.

I’m noticing the wood door today for no particular reason. I don’t like it, the color (again, questionable) doesn’t fit.

There are 2 lines along the top, I noted them before. Thinking abt Effie’s thesis, the idea of process & decision-making. It might be interesting to try to make this coat. Or to silhouette the figure’s shape.

The gargoyle on the left, carved into the table, begs to be touched. It’s unreal, impossibly carved from wood; it’s not the substance or the weight of wood but carved of wax or wet paper maché. I wonder what he used to model this – as a reference, I mean – a real table, or some form carved from wax or molded frm clay? I find myself drifting between the romantic fantasy of the picture’s subject to curiosity abt the artist’s technical process.

I look for one minute.

I see the edges of the wood the picture is painted on. Just the left and right edge. It’s almost as if the frame, with its glass, has been hung over the image, but not framed within it. It seems fake somehow that way.

This black coat, with the navy blue sash, could be something. I don’t feel inspired by anything – I did before, but I find myself freezing. The colors are so dull

I’ll make a list of colors.

Olive green, charcoal gray, kind of a smoky black, peachy skin tone, pale, almost salmon-like colors, blond wood, chocolate brown, dull gold, red-brown jewel stone, sickly red-purple, Prussian blue, light gray, another kind of dull olive for the hair. This coat has slashes and cloth-covered buttons. It has a heft and a weight and a texture that would make it divine to try on. I think about what happens psychologically and emotionally when I put on a heavy coat – the safety and comfort but also a sense of pride and power. A black coat, heavy, textured, with a fine blue sash. A blue sash adorned with long gold beads.

When I move back, to the left, and have a seat on the bench, I get a better sense of depth in the painting. There is a clearer sense that the background is behind him, rather than the feeling that he has been cut and pasted onto the scene, with no depth. I didn’t realize I felt this way until I stepped back. Still, now, it’s a little crowded. He’s sort of jammed between this ridiculous ugly table and a gargoyle-capped chair poised right at his backside. No way to live. He’s put in the corner, right in the crevice where the walls meet. Why is he jammed in that way, in this magnificent coat? I feel like the more I look at it the greater the sense that the space is collapsing like my friend said the other day, folding on itself like a burrito. Table, _______, column, wall, young man wall chair door. Jam, jam, jam, jam, jam.

The greatest sense of space is between his eyes. For all of the claustrophobia in the corner he’s been stuffed into, his view, one eye facing me and one eye off to the left, must be downright expansive.

(Attempt #1, 2, 3)

(Attempt #4)

Huh. This is the closest guess but it’s totally unscientific anyways so I’m not going to do it again.

So… what do we do with this handsome young man who’s been jammed into a corner with a bunch of furniture and a fabulous coat, whose lazy eye gives us the impression of near-omniscience?

Don’t know.

Collar, coat, buttons, sash.

Collar, coat buttons – braided buttons?

Sash with beads