Who Paints

Using infrared technology on the Mona Lisa, that allowed them to see beneath a layer of varnish, scientists confirmed what art experts have guessed about the technique, known as sfumato, or smoky finish. It was achieved with layer after layer of a mixture of oil, varnish and a small amount of pigment.

Who paints from the inside out?
It is never simply understood.

Reason plays on the surface elements,
What works within assembling us?

Men of great import, of vague inconsequence,
Pause a moment, stilled, brought into place.

Many have manufactured a life
to conform the outer will.

Few have found their spirit
drawn out in text, art, and love.

It remains to be expressed
if expression still matters to you.

Matching the self to the fathomed world
is difficult, consumes what time is left.

Waiting like a dancer
at the far edge of the stage,
For a music that guides the spirit on.

The vast expression of the voice,
The inordinate grace of the body,
Represent what we were or seemed to be.

The portrait has no visible stroke,
The layering beyond apparent cause,
Meaning less to the observer than the artist.

What we find is what we know,
Resonant in a perfection,
Granting an illuminated cause.