'Giuliano de' Medici,' by Sandro Botticelli

'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.