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This is the blog of Ian Rosales Casocot. Filipino writer. Sometime academic. Former backpacker. Twink bait. Hamster lover.

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Monday, April 13, 2015

entry arrow1:58 PM | Pentimento



This is Hendrick Van Anthonissen’s Beach Scene, before and after the uncovering of its pentimento. I've always loved the idea of pentimento, which means "to repent" -- and in art encompasses painterly corrections or a changing of the mind in the creative process, which expose previous versions of the design. I remember this quote from Pentimento by Lillian Hellman: “Old paint on a canvas, as it ages, sometimes becomes transparent. When that happens it is possible, in some pictures, to see the original lines: a tree will show through a woman's dress, a child makes way for a dog, a large boat is no longer on an open sea. That is called pentimento because the painter 'repented,' changed his mind. Perhaps it would be as well to say that the old conception, replaced by a later choice, is a way of seeing and then seeing again. That is all I mean about the people in this book. The paint has aged and I wanted to see what was there for me once, what is there for me now.”

People come and go in our lives, leaving traces.

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