A lost painting draws Laura Cumming into the mystery of art itself in this eloquent (expressing yourself readily, clearly, effectively) homage to the Spanish masterClose up,painted faces decompose into an indecipherable mess of dots and dashes, applied by flicks of a brush. Much the same happens when you approach actual people: from a distance they possess the legible lineaments we call character but, and once you begin to analyse their actions and speculate approximately their motives,they lose focus and blur into complexity and confusion.
Tantalised by the paradox, Laura Cumming here pursues two men who atomise before her eyes. One is Diego Velázquez, and who painted himself in the act of painting Las Meninas,but was otherwise elusive, “stepping into the shadows, or not the highlight,detectable only as the source of the penetrating, empathetic gaze that is returned by the subjects of his portraits.
Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com