Pentimento

We went back to the Getty.

Every curve of sidewalk exposed a teasing glimpse of her destination. Wild sage scented the air until it felt almost holy. The path widened, finally opening to a panoramic view of the mountains to the east and the Pacific to the west. Homes hugged the ocean side cliffs north and south while in the distance, streams of cars moved their occupants through smog filled life. They'd created a building where a person could transcend the mundane and leave reality behind. 

When we first visited, I'd promised myself I'd return within six months to wander the galleries and fill myself with the beauty of the paintings. Instead, it's been over a year.

I can't speak intelligently about art. I don't know the words or the proper descriptions. It's like poetry, I suppose. I read a poem and ponder if there is more meaning behind the words. I wrinkle my forehead and concentrate on the meter and tone and still, it eludes me like a whisper in the breeze while around me others see symbolism and metaphor.

Even with the amazing Bill as our guide, I can't really do much more than stare in wonder and feel the deep ache in my heart at the beauty.From Van Gogh's Irises which makes my throat tighten with tears to the ballet dancers of Degas and their flimsy pale costumes hinting at depth and color, I stand in awe at the idea of so many viewing something once created in private and the artists who likely doubted their impact.

I wonder about their stories, how they must have felt. I think of their passions, their fears, their joys. They fell in love. Their hearts were broken. They got colds and blisters and had backs that ached when they woke in the morning. To see the common in the unique while standing in the glow of their unfading light...it draws me back again and again.

We roamed into a room blanketed with Andrea del Sarto's sketches, his studies. Here a line drawing of a cherub's round cheeks. There an arm with each tendon stretched and etched to perfection. In the center of the room, over six feet in height, was the finished painting. I stood next to Bill and puzzled over an extra leg extending like a shadow. Pentimento, he told me. The artist had changed his mind.

I stared at that shadowed leg, thinking of del Sarto's quest for perfection, his reputation as "faultless" and, centuries later, the revelation of the imperfections he tried to hide. The weight of time pressed on me. Almost five centuries of eyes on this very painting. Could he have known when he mixed his paints that he'd achieve immortality through those brush strokes and fine lines? Could he have realized we'd eventually see his mistakes? And, once visible, laud them?

Pentimento.

It's a beautiful word for what is, in essence, a mistake. It is from the Italian pentirsi which means "to repent".

I returned home to a pile of paper six inches high, the edges no longer crisp but rolled and folded, the steady stream of black and white smeared with red. So much red. Whole pages are ruthlessly slashed, the words deleted, the ideas discarded and then repainted to hide the mistakes.

I have no illusions of greatness. I'm not writing the Great American Novel. No one will ever read my stories and liken them to master works. I am not even the Thomas Kincaid of writers. Still, the internal pressure to produce something "faultless" weighs on me.

I have two chapters to go, two chapters to finish. And like a painter who tries to paint over a mistake, I wonder if anyone will see my errors. Or, like del Sarto, will they rise like ghosts from the story, exposing my lack?

In the beautifully lit room, surrounded by red lined sketches, I remind myself pentimento can be a beautiful thing.

Now I just have to believe it.