Buried below all which came after they lay, still existent in some nebulous manner but hidden and changed and forgotten, like the tiny little child’s bones which were once, and in some way continue to be, inside all of us. Beneath the surface is a second face, the rejected or reformed one which was actually the first. The first face, the first gesture, the first straining motions toward harmony and beauty; The first chase after that most wily wild-goose. Though willfully obscured and subsumed within what’s judged more glorious, these presences haunt their old corporeal boundaries still. In just the right light you can see them appear like apparitions.
Portrait of a man in oriental attire. circle of Rembrandt.
Christ’s Charge to Peter. By Raphael.
St. John the Evangelist. By Anthony van Dyck.
The Wood Sawyers. By Jean-François Millet.
Adoration of the Magi. By Leonardo Da Vinci.
Portrait of a man in a black hat. Unknown.
‘A view of Pickersgill Harbour, Dusky Bay. By William Hodges.
Portrait study of Mary Villiers. By Anthony van Dyck.
Byzantine Icon. Unknown.
The Healing of the Lame Man. By Raphael.
Coronation of St. Catherine. By Peter Paul Rubens.
The Old Guitarist. By Pablo Picasso.
Sibylla Palmifera. By Dante Gabriel Rossetti.
The Calling of Saints Peter and Andrew. By Caravagio.
L’Infante Marie-Marguerite. By Édouard Manet.
Self-Portrait. By Rembrandt.
The Virgin and Child Enthroned with Sts. Francis and Homobonus, Bernardino da Feltre and Beggar. By Bartolomeo Montagna.
A Montenegrin with a Shotgun. By Vlaho Bukovac.
A Bar at the Folies-Bergére. By Édouard Manet.
Portrait of Sebastià Vidal Junyer. By Pablo Picasso.
Fête Champêtre. By Jean-Antoine Watteau.
Mona Lisa. By Leonardo Da Vinci.
Portrait of Duke of Alba. By Antonis Mor van Dashorst.
The Calling of Matthew. By Caravaggio.
All of the above images are actual X-radiography photographs, taken by conservators, of the titled paintings. Some reveal forgotten painted-over images, some reveal added or edited details, others simply show the physicality of the paint’s application itself. All are spectral and surprising and strangely melancholy.
Hope you enjoyed.
