'Giuliano de' Medici,' by
Sandro Botticelli is kind of a dick
“He is dead. It’s a death portrait” I couldn’t get that out
of my head, I read the wall text.
“I Didn’t Know! I Didn’t Know! I’m sorry.” Why was He
yelling?
The red was
intense. Red covered his chest. Volume is what you could use to describe it.
Washboard folds cover his red chest. The folds are strips, dark and chunky, sinking
into the red.
“Is your head on backwards? That’s weird.” It really was,
his head was seriously twisted all the way around but I guess it’s still in a way
his belly. He has a bumpy nose, hook like, his hair curled and dark.
“Will you stop staring right at me please?” His eye rips
over my right shoulder.
He is laid out on the wood panel thinly spreading out over
the panel. He becomes very flat. “This guy is weird.” I answer to myself. He sits
there proper with flawless posture; it feels dead. If front of the backwards torso is a dove sitting on a
branch. The bird is calm.
“Dove” I say, “what are you doing sitting on a branch in
front of this still man?” The bird never responded he just sat with a piercing
eye fixed outwards. This all feels very strange. I haven’t been able to figure
out where the branch is coming from, where the bird is perched. I gave up on
the smooth bird who never quite gave up on me. “Well since you don’t really
talk to me I guess I’m going to go back inside to the painting. See You.” There
was no response. Fuck that bird.
I came back into the space, the man was so still, and it
took me a few more minutes to accept what he is. I wish I could have stopped
staring at his extremely thin lips and bumpy nose. He looked pissed so I looked
passed him. I wasn’t sure if this was his house or not. The walls were cold and
grey I thought they were made of some type of heavy stone. I later learned the
whole thing was just a façade, it was just paint, the type they used in
kindergarten classes.
The architecture was cramped. It felt like a coffin. I had
nowhere to go. I was starting to freak. It was heavy to take a breath, impossible.
There was some light but it didn’t show any specifics. But it was very bright.
I tried to walk towards it but He wouldn’t move.
“Get the fuck out of the way” He wouldn’t move! Or blink or
piss or breathe. I was sick of this.
“Okay, man I guess you win. Thanks for letting me stare at
you.” I thought about a pile of shit and how it would look on his shirt. I
scuffed my shoe and exhaled.
No response. I guess it’s hard to breath for him, maybe it’s not an illusion and his torso really is backwards?
I left after this small elderly woman kept peeking over my
shoulder at my green, 9 x 12 sketchbook I had owned for the past year and had
yet to fill.
I didn’t wave goodbye.
