Duane Keiser on Velazquez

Many years ago I dis­cov­ered in one of Velazquez’s early paint­ings his thumbprints in the paint (at least I thought it was a thumbprint—who knows really?) The thumbprint was used to describe a piece of reflected light on the bot­tom half of a lime. There was some­thing won­der­ful about how his thumb had lifted off some paint to reveal the warm ground under­neath, and how that warmth acted as the glow of light from the sur­face the table on which the lemon sits, and how, in addi­tion to it’s rep­re­sen­ta­tional finesse it still remained a thumbprint like you’d see a five year old make while fin­ger paint­ing. When I put an actual lime in front of me I could see how he saw it and why he came to the con­clu­sion that his thumb was the best tool for the job. I sud­denly wanted to paint a lime but not just because of the color or shape or tex­ture but rather I wanted to paint a lime because of how Velazquez moved the paint when he painted one. For a long while I would “see” that thumbprint in all limes… I was chan­nel­ing Velazquez through a lime!

I don’t think I have any­thing I could add to that. Go read the whole thing.