Whether We Like it or Not

Mathieu Laca, Bogeyman, 2011

Sometimes, I look at myself in the mirror and, to be really frank, I don’t find very exciting the face I see on the other side of the glass. A bit depressing! I tend to ask myself: “Will it get much worst?” Everything happens so suddenly! One morning you’re still young, the next morning… Your whole skin seems to be desperately attracted by an irresistible force hidden somewhere beneath you. Maybe if I start standing on my head a few hours every day… Anyway, I guess I don’t have any choice; that’s what we call “getting old” and that’s what’s happening to me.

On the other hand, I think I’m living in a world that is getting more and more exciting years after years. Nowadays, the whole world seems to get upside down. Dictators are falling everywhere. People are demanding to be heard, mainly young people. Politicians, religious leaders, even famous journalists don’t have any choice but to justify what they repeated over and over again for decades. Everyday, on the news, we see a strange mixture of violence and hope, of hatred and love. It’s obvious that a new world order is taking place. The world won’t ever be the same, whether we like it or not.

I like it. Being probably the best example of a baby boomer, I am not that proud of the world we created. I guess we did what we could with what we had but I’m sure we could have done a better job even if it would have been less fun!

Anyway, most of the old values are seriously scratched and I think it’s highly exciting. Just wait for the day Steven Harper and his royalist brown-nosers hit a brick wall: what a national orgasm it will be! “Steven Harper and the royalist brown-nosers”: sounds like a great rock band, doesn’t it?

After all, I think I’m a lucky man. First, I’m not only happy with that new world order, I am blessed to be married to an artist that so perfectly well represents this new world. Sincerity and frankness are probably two of the main key words of that new order. A polluter is a polluter. A crook is a crook. A dictator is a dictator. An asshole is not called His Excellency. A pedophile is not called His Eminence. A fucking sadistic bullfighting fan is not called a traditional art lover. A cock is a cock, long, hard, throbbing and proud. Whether we like it or not.

Mathieu (Laca) is an artist that belongs to that new world. He’s a tremendous artist and an extraordinary technician: I’m sure he would be able to paint the Queen’s portrait with nothing else but a paintbrush stuck in his ass (this one is for Harper!). But he decided to talk about History, about pollution, about cruelty to animals, about political abuse of power… about that new world order that is taking place… whether we like it or not.

In a few months he will be 30. He is here to stay. He is here to grow as an artist and as a man. We might decide to put his paintings away when our mother-in-law is coming for dinner: but he will always be there ready to explode with his sincerity and his frankness.

Thanks to Mathieu, I’m sure, pretty soon everybody will be able to consider a cock for what it really is: a fucking cock!

Comeau

Arthur Rimbaud

Arthur Rimbaud, huile sur lin/oil on linen, 77cmX62cm, 2011
Collection privée (Norvège) / Private collection (Norway)

Si le monde était dévasté en un clin d’œil, le seul livre qui saurait me donner du réconfort, le seul livre qui me permettrait réellement de vivre, puisqu’il contient le monde, serait Les Illuminations de Rimbaud. Il est de ces livres dont on n’épuise jamais le mystère, dont chaque phrase est une gorgée d’enfance qui nous emporte dans une merveilleuse torpeur. Il est de ces livres qui transforment. Même Rimbaud n’y a pas survécu. Consumé par son œuvre, il a dû « s’opérer vivant de la poésie » et cesser totalement d’écrire à 21 ans. Son silence demeurera à jamais le plus retentissant de toute la Poésie.

J’ai peint ce portrait de lui par amour. Alors qu’il n’était même pas encore sec, je l’ai vendu dans un pays lointain. Je vais l’envoyer prochainement. Tout cela n’a pas vraiment d’importance. Rimbaud existe. Il est partout. Il est avec moi. Il est en Norvège. Il est sur Jupiter où il jongle avec des sphères de métal. Non, il marche vers l’aurore. Éternellement. On n’a qu’à ouvrir un livre pour s’en rendre compte. Ou bien gratter une orange.

Moi, je peins continuellement. Et chaque fois que je pense à lui, je pleure.

Mathieu Laca

P.S. Voici un de mes poèmes préférés:

(English follows)

Conte

Un Prince était vexé de ne s'être employé jamais qu'à la perfection des générosités vulgaires. Il prévoyait d'étonnantes révolutions de l'amour, et soupçonnait ses femmes de pouvoir mieux que cette complaisance agrémentée de ciel et de luxe. Il voulait voir la vérité, l'heure du désir et de la satisfaction essentiels. Que ce fût ou non une aberration de piété, il voulut. Il possédait au moins un assez large pouvoir humain.

Toutes les femmes qui l'avaient connu furent assassinées. Quel saccage du jardin de la beauté! Sous le sabre, elles le bénirent. Il n'en commanda point de nouvelles. − Les femmes réapparurent.

Il tua tous ceux qui le suivaient, après la chasse ou les libations. − Tous le suivaient.

Il s'amusa à égorger les bêtes de luxe. Il fit flamber les palais. Il se ruait sur les gens et les taillait en pièces. −La foule, les toits d'or, les belles bêtes existaient encore.

Peut-on s'extasier dans la destruction, se rajeunir par la cruauté! Le peuple ne murmura pas. Personne n'offrit le concours de ses vues.

Un soir il galopait fièrement. Un Génie apparut, d'une beauté ineffable, inavouable même. De sa physionomie et de son maintien ressortait la promesse d'un amour multiple et complexe! d'un bonheur indicible, insupportable même! Le Prince et le Génie s'anéantirent probablement dans la santé essentielle. Comment n'auraient-ils pas pu en mourir? Ensemble donc ils moururent.

Mais ce Prince décéda, dans son palais, à un âge ordinaire. Le prince était le Génie. Le Génie était le Prince.

La musique savante manque à notre désir.


Rimbaud, (Les Illuminations, 1873-1875)

Tale

A Prince was vexed at having devoted himself only to the perfection of ordinary generosities.
He foresaw astonishing revolutions of love
and suspected his women of being able to do better
than their habitual acquiescence embellished by heaven and luxury.
He wanted to see the truth, the hour of essential desire and gratification.
Whether this was an aberration of piety or not,
that is what he wanted. Enough worldly power, at least, he had.
All the women who had known him were assassinated;
what havoc in the garden of beauty! At the point of the sword they blessed him.
He did not order new ones.-- The women reappeared.
He killed all those who followed him, after the hunt or the libations.--

All followed him. He amused himself cutting the throats of rare animals.
He set palaces on fire. He would rush upon people and hack them to pieces.--
The throngs, the gilded roofs, the beautiful animals still remained.
Can one be in ecstasies over destruction and by cruelty rejuvenated!
The people did not complain. No one offered him the benefit of his views.
One evening he was proudly galloping.
A Genie appeared, of ineffable beauty, unwavorable even.
In his face and in his bearing shone the promise of a complex and multiple love!
of an indescribable happiness, unendurable, even.

The Prince and the Genie annihilated each other probably in essential health.
How could they have helped dying of it?
Together then they died.
But this Prince died in his palace at an ordinary age,
the Prince was the Genie, the Genie was the Prince.--
There is no sovereign music for our desire.


Rimbaud, (Les Illuminations, 1873-1875)

Old Masters 2.0 (in Progress)

Mathieu Laca, Studio shot of works in progress,
Center top: El Greco, Below: Rembrandt, Right: Goya

Patrick John Mills and I were talking about my recent portraits of painters when he came up with this idea: “Why don’t you paint old masters, such as Titian, but using the same pigments those painters were using in their time?” What a great challenge! It didn’t take more to spark my imagination.

First, I had to do a lot of research in order to find what particular pigments were used during the Renaissance and the Baroque period. Then, I had to find evidence of what pigments were used by the painters I intended to portray. This was easy enough for some. Goya even has a self-portrait where we can clearly identify each color on his palette. It proved to be quite difficult though for others like the Greco, although we can guess fairly well by just looking at his works closely and by considering the pigments available in his time.

Finding what pigments old masters used was unfortunately not all. I had to get them! How? A lot of them simply vanished. They have been replaced by synthetically manufactured ones and by pigments with a higher performance.

The first traditional color I became acquainted with is Lead white. Wow. Very different from Titanium white! Very toxic too, like all the pigments containing lead. It’s so tacky that when you apply it with a brush, the brush almost sticks to the canvas by itself! Barely exaggerating. At first, I thought that Lead white could not be mixed with sulfur based pigments such as Vermilion because I read about flesh tones in Middle Age illuminations that have turned black for that reason. But I later discovered that this phenomenon does not occur in oil paint where the oil seals each pigment particle, therefore preventing that chemical reaction.

The most beautiful color of all times is certainly the genuine Vermilion. It comes from mercury mines in China and is ground by hand in small batches. It has a very surprisingly high tinting power for a traditional color (almost as much as Phtalo Blue!) and a nice orangey red shade perfect for skin tones. In fact, I realized that, now that I can identify it, it’s everywhere in European painting! Whenever you see a touch of reflective light under a chin, you’re looking at Vermilion. Our recent Cadmium red simply does not stand the comparison. But beware of the price: 150$ for a 60ml tube!

Another wonderful but also very expensive color is Lapis Lazuli. The bright blue skies of Raphaël were painted with that very color. It comes from a costly mineral dug in Afghanistan. Originally, it gave its color to the first blue jeans. We now find synthetic imitations of that pigment under the name Ultramarine blue. I was surprised though of the low tinting power of that very subtle and translucent reddish blue. It proved to be perfectly suited to paint the meandering sky of my El Greco portrait.

I have yet to buy a decent yellow. I’m still painting only with a lemon ocher, which is not a very bright color. I’m very much looking forward to try a Lead-tin yellow (all of Rembrandt’s incredible lighting effects are done with that pigment) that is still backordered at Natural Pigments (http://www.naturalpigments.com/) in California, from which I buy most of my tubes for this project. I think this company’s main market is restorers. That maybe explains why they only sell small 40ml tubes. Orpiment is also an interesting yellow. But it’s sold only in 20ml jars and it’s basically arsenic. So, I decided long ago not to leave my rags everywhere for my dogs to chew!

The earth pigments we have today (yellow ocher, raw and burnt Sienna, raw and burnt Umber, green earth and the blacks such as ivory and carbon black) are basically synthetic versions of older natural pigments that were dug up in specific areas or made from burning bones or wood. Because I found that natural pigments are so expensive and sold only in small tubes, I decided to use the more affordable contemporary versions of these colors, considering that the colors do not differ and that I would need a lot of those colors to paint the backgrounds in my portraits.

I guess that’s enough of the cooking lesson for now! I’ll focus more on the meaning of the portraits and my stylistic approach in a later post.

Before ending, I have to mention the wonderful work my husband is doing right now and that is parallel to mine. You can see below that he brings the same approach to framing than the one I have in painting, incorporating elements of traditional woodcarving to create works that both revere and twist the tradition. It will be quite exciting to see, in the end, the portraits and frames coming together and to see how they influence each other.

See El Greco, one of the first portraits of that series, by clicking here.

Portraits of Francis Bacon

Here’s a collection of portraits I did of Francis Bacon, my all-time favorite painter. Whenever I feel lost in my painting, I look at his work. He is so intuitive, he has so much confidence in painterly “mistakes” that it becomes contagious. I can’t help then but to renew the bond with true painting.

The way he distorts the body with such sumptuous violence leaves me speechless. It makes each of his paintings a Greek tragedy. A tragedy that does not rely on a plot but rather on an instant visual impact. A tragedy without words.

 Mathieu Laca, Francis Bacon, 2012

 

Mathieu Laca, Francis Bacon, 2011, private collection



Mathieu Laca, Francis Bacon, 2011, private collection



Mathieu Laca, Francis Bacon, 2011



Mathieu Laca, Francis Bacon, 2011, private collection



***


Francis Bacon in his Studio



Francis Bacon, Figure Study for a Crucifixion, 1963

El Greco

Mathieu Laca, El Greco, oil an traditional pigments on linen /
huile et pigments traditionnels sur lin, oak frame with carved onlays gilded with silver leaf /
cadre en chêne avec appliques sculptées dorées à la feuille d'argent, 89cmX69cm, 2011

I had a hard time finding how Domenikos Theotokopoulos (a.k.a. El Greco) looked like. Yes, I found a few of his self-portraits here and there, but none conveyed well the full power of that most singular genius. The reason is simple. El Greco’s personality can only be encompassed through the entirety of his works. Each of his figures is a self-portrait. So, in painting his portrait, I focused less on depicting his specific physical features than on expressing the very peculiar mood of his imagination. That explains the swirling clouds, the ruff and the goatee so typical of his work. I also referred to the influence of icon painting on this Crete-born master by slightly tilting his head for a more stylized posture.

J’ai eu du mal à trouver de quoi Domenikos Theotokopoulos (alias El Greco) avait l’air. Il existe bien quelques-uns de ses autoportraits, mais aucun ne traduit assez la puissance de ce génie des plus singuliers, je trouve. La raison en est simple. La personnalité du Greco peut seulement être appréhendée à travers l’ensemble de ses œuvres. Chacun de ses personnages est un autoportrait. C’est pourquoi, en peignant son portrait, je me suis moins concentré sur le rendu de ses caractéristiques physiques individuelles que sur l’expression de la couleur particulière de son imagination. Ce qui explique les nuées tourbillonnantes, la fraise et la barbe en pointe si typique de ses tableaux. J’ai aussi fait référence à l’influence sur ce maître crétois de la peinture d’icône en inclinant sa tête légèrement pour une posture plus stylisée.



Below is a detail of the frame. Just as the painting, the framing also refers to tradition. It quotes traditional woodcarving patterns with silver onlays at the bottom left of the otherwise very modern oak shadow box.

Ci-dessous, un détail du cadre. Comme la peinture, l'encadrement fait écho à la tradition. Il cite des motifs traditionnels de la sculpture décorative par l'ajout d'appliques argent en bas à gauche du pourtant très moderne encadrement à gorge en chêne.

My portrait was painted using only pigments that were available to the Greco in his time. Below is how a few of those pigments are distributed in my work. Click here to read more on my research about traditional pigments.

Mon portrait a été peint en utilisant seulement des pigments qui étaient disponibles au Greco à son époque. Ci-dessous, vous trouverez la répartition de quelques-uns de ces pigments. Cliquez ici pour plus de détails sur ma recherche à propos des pigments traditionnels (texte en anglais).

El Greco, The Burial of the Count of Orgaz / L'enterrement du comte d'Orgaz, 1588

Caravaggio

Mathieu Laca, Caravaggio, oil and traditional pigments on linen /
huile et pigments traditionnels sur lin, 77cm X 62cm, 2011

I have read “La course à l’abîme”, a highly documented fiction Dominique Fernandez wrote on Caravaggio’s life. This literary portrait casts light on the eroticism and the cruelty that were so intrinsically connected to his work. In it, his love for young thieves and his taste for battle (afterall, he was excommunicated by the Pope for killing a man) are brilliantly linked to details of his paintings.

Having painted a lot of works with explicit sexual content, I can only but relate to that provocative and impetuous artist who has violently shaken the foundations of western art.

***

J’ai lu «La course à l’abîme», une fiction hautement documentée de Dominique Fernandez sur la vie du Caravage. Ce portrait littéraire jette une lumière sur la cruauté et l’érotisme si intrinsèquement liés à son œuvre. Son amour pour les jeunes voyous et son goût pour la bagarre (après tout, il a été excommunié par le Pape pour avoir tué un homme) y sont brillamment reliés à des détails de ses tableaux.

Ayant peint beaucoup de toiles au contenu sexuel explicite, je ne peux que m’identifier à cet artiste provocant et impétueux qui a violemment secoué les fondations de l’art occidental.

***

My portrait was painted using only pigments that were available to Caravaggio in his time. Below is how a few of those pigments are distributed in my work. Click here to read more on my research about traditional pigments.

Mon portrait a été peint en utilisant seulement des pigments qui étaient disponibles au Caravage à son époque. Ci-dessous, vous trouverez la répartition de quelques-uns de ces pigments. Cliquez ici pour plus de détails sur ma recherche à propos des pigments traditionnels (texte en anglais).

Caravaggio, Love Conquers All / L'Amour vainqueur, 1602

Goya

Mathieu Laca, Francesco Goya, oil and traditional pigments on linen /

huile et pigments traditionnels sur lin, oak frame with carved gold leaf onlays and bitumen of Judea /
cadre en chêne avec appliques sculptées dorées à la feuille et bitume de Judée, 86cm X 70cm, 2011

The sleep of reason produces monsters. That title of one of Goya’s famous etchings kept bouncing in my head while I was painting his portrait. How could I depict this surly old man, marked by all the barbarism he had witnessed? Suddenly, a ray of darkness went though my mind and cracked his skull on the canvas. His reason was failing. A door was opening for all the monsters of the night to take shape.


Le sommeil de la raison engendre des montres. Ce titre d’une des célèbres gravures de Goya me revenait constamment en tête alors que je peignais son portrait. Comment pouvais-je dépeindre ce vieil homme bourru, marqué par toute la barbarie dont il a été témoin? Soudain, un rayon de ténèbres me traversa l’esprit et lui fendit le crâne sur la toile. Sa raison s’ébréchait. Une porte s’ouvrait, frayant un chemin aux monstres de la nuit.

***

Below is a detail of the frame. Just as the painting, the framing also refers to tradition. It quotes traditional woodcarving patterns with gold leaf onlays at the right corner of the otherwise very modern oak shadow box.

Ci-dessous, un détail du cadre. Comme la peinture, l'encadrement fait écho à la tradition. Il cite des motifs traditionnels de la sculpture décorative par l'ajout d'appliques dorées à la feuille dans le coin droit du pourtant très moderne encadrement à gorge en chêne.

My portrait was painted using only pigments that were available to Goya in his time. Below is how a few of those pigments are distributed in my work. Click here to read more on my research about traditional pigments.

Mon portrait a été peint en utilisant seulement des pigments qui étaient disponibles pour Goya à son époque. Ci-dessous, vous trouverez la répartition de quelques-uns de ces pigments. Cliquez ici pour plus de détails sur ma recherche à propos des pigments traditionnels (texte en anglais).

Francesco Goya, The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters /
Le Sommeil de la raison engendre des monstres, 1797

Rembrandt

Mathieu Laca, Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, oil and traditional pigments on linen /

huile et pigments traditionnels sur lin, oak frame with carved gold leaf onlay /

cadre en chêne avec applique sculptée dorée à la feuille, 77cm X 62cm,
2011, Private Collection / Collection privée

I felt that, in the Rembrandt portrait, I did not really paint Rembrandt. I painted his gaze looking at me from over the passage of time. His gaze is the true center of the work. Yet, it is the only thing that appears to be blank on the canvas. Elusive. Unpainted.

I wished to experience what Rembrandt called Sprezzatura, which means an apparent carelessness in the handling of the paint and which I find absolutely sublime.


J’ai l'impression que, dans le portrait de Rembrandt, je n’ai pas vraiment peint Rembrandt. J’ai plutôt peint son regard dirigé vers moi par-delà le temps. Son regard est le véritable centre de l’œuvre. Malgré cela, c’est la seule chose qui semble absente du tableau. Non peinte.

Insaisissable. J'ai voulu faire l'expérience de ce que Rembrandt appellait Sprezzatura et qui veut dire une sorte de nonchalance apparente dans le maniement du pinceau et que je trouve absolument sublime.

***

Below is a detail of the frame. Just as the painting, the framing also refers to tradition. It quotes traditional woodcarving patterns with a gold leaf onlay at the bottom of the otherwise very modern oak shadow box.

Ci-dessous, un détail du cadre. Comme la peinture, l'encadrement fait écho à la tradition. Il cite des motifs traditionnels de la sculpture décorative par l'ajout d'une applique dorée à la feuille au bas du pourtant très moderne encadrement à gorge en chêne.

My portrait was painted using only pigments that were available to Rembrandt in his time. Below is how a few of those pigments are distributed in my work. Click here to read more on my research about traditional pigments.

Mon portrait a été peint en utilisant seulement des pigments qui étaient disponibles pour Rembrandt à son époque. Ci-dessous, vous trouverez la répartition de quelques-uns de ces pigments. Cliquez ici pour plus de détails sur ma recherche à propos des pigments traditionnels (texte en anglais).

Harmensz Rembrandt van Rijn, Self-portrait as Democritus (detail) /
Autoportrait en Démocrite (détail), 1668

Rubens

Mathieu Laca, Pierre-Paul Rubens, oil and traditional pigments on linen /
huile et pigments traditionnels sur lin, 77cm X 62cm, 2012, 1800$

Rubens was a painter of the flesh. Lucian Freud and Jenny Saville are in direct line with him. He loved to paint the big rolls of flesh in fat bodies. I always found that there was nostalgia in the tremendous load of imagery and movement in his works. Nostalgia of pleasures that past, as if he wanted to revive those pleasures through painting. I wanted to express that nostalgia of consumed delights by portraying Rubens against a flesh-tone sunset and making him gazing back at us, like an old accomplice.

Rubens était un peintre de la chair. Lucian Freud et Jenny Saville sont en ligne directe avec lui. Il adorait peindre les gros bourrelets de corps très gras. J’ai toujours trouvé qu’il y avait une forme de nostalgie dans cette incroyable surcharge d’imagerie et de mouvement qu’on retrouve dans ses œuvres. Nostalgie de plaisirs passés, comme s’il voulait raviver ces plaisirs par la peinture. J’ai voulu exprimer cette nostalgie particulière de joies déchues en faisant le portrait de Rubens contre un crépuscule aux tons de chair et en faisant en sorte qu’il se retourne vers nous, pour nous regarder tel un vieux complice.

***

My portrait was painted using only pigments that were available to Rubens in his time. Below is how a few of those pigments are distributed in my work. Click here to read more on my research about traditional pigments.

Mon portrait a été peint en utilisant seulement des pigments qui étaient disponibles pour Rubens à son époque. Ci-dessous, vous trouverez la répartition de quelques-uns de ces pigments. Cliquez ici pour plus de détails sur ma recherche à propos des pigments traditionnels (texte en anglais).

Rubens, Bacchus, 1640

Rubens, The Hippo Hunt / La chasse à l'hippopotame, 1640

Killing Velasquez

Mathieu Laca, Diego Velázquez, oil and traditional pigments on linen /

huile et pigments traditionnels sur lin, 77cm X 62cm, 2012, 1800$

Why all this fuss about Velasquez, a painter who seemed to be more concerned about obtaining the king’s favors than anything else? After all, he was a courtier, architect, decorator and administrator! Why? Why almost every painter secretly dreams about killing Velasquez with his own hands? His subjects have nothing special. He painted the Spanish court, a few midgets, a few Jesuses here and there, that’s all. So, why? The reason is, and that is why Velasquez became the “painter of painters”, he didn’t seem to care. He has an ease, a freshness that makes every other painting look overworked by comparison. It’s as if his works had been painted in a few minutes. Nothing polished. Just life caught at a precise moment in time and seized by the brush. No pathos, no ornament, no explicit message. Nothing personal was added. Velasquez erases himself from his paintings. He steps aside. He is both present and missing, like the king in Las Meninas. He lets the work live its own life. That’s how he has been teaching lessons to painters for hundreds of years.


Pourquoi tout ce tapage à propos de Vélasquez, un peintre qui avait plus l’air de se soucier d’obtenir des faveurs du roi qu’autre chose? Après tout, il était bien courtisan, architecte, décorateur et administrateur! Pourquoi? Pourquoi tous les peintres rêvent-ils secrètement de tuer Vélasquez de leurs propres mains? Ses sujets n’ont rien de très spécial. Il a peint les gens de la cour d’Espagne, quelques nains, quelques Jésus ici et là, c’est tout. Alors, pourquoi? La raison en est, et c’est ce qui fait de Vélasquez le « peintre des peintres », qu’il avait vraiment l’air de s’en foutre. Il a une aisance, une fraîcheur qui rend toutes les autres toiles « sur-travaillées » par comparaison. C’est comme si ses œuvres avaient été peintes en quelques minutes. Rien de poli. Seulement, la vie capturée à un moment précis et saisie par le pinceau. Aucun pathos, aucun ornement, aucun message explicite non plus. Rien de personnel n’a été ajouté. Vélasquez s’est comme effacé de ses peintures. Il se tient en retrait, à la fois présent et absent, tel le roi dans Les Ménines. Il laisse l’œuvre vivre sa propre vie. C’est de cette manière qu’il a donné des leçons aux peintres pendant des siècles.

***

My portrait was painted using only pigments that were available to Velasquez in his time. Below is how a few of those pigments are distributed in my work. Click here to read more on my research about traditional pigments.


Mon portrait a été peint en utilisant seulement des pigments qui étaient disponibles pour Vélasquez à son époque. Ci-dessous, vous trouverez la répartition de quelques-uns de ces pigments. Cliquez ici pour plus de détails sur ma recherche à propos des pigments traditionnels (texte en anglais).

Diego Velasquez, Las Meninas (Les Ménines), 1657
Below is a detail showing the brushwork. /
Ci-dessous, un détail montrant le travail du pinceau.