Ow! ow! … ooohagh … don't they realise all that chafing hurts – much more than a cut-throat scrape …
What are they doing … restoring me, repairing, re-painting me, cleaning me …? I know I'm 500 years old but … it is 1997 after all.
They've been nibbling pieces of my paint, crushing the rough pieces of oils in their fingers to dust – for some reason they put this stuff into little vials – now I could gaze at those pieces of me …
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Cut-throat razor |
... they take me off into their ether … there I'm scrutinised from all angles, put into metal boxes which flash lights at me, other containers brightly shine at me … some close-up, sometimes from afar …
… those people stand and stare, gossip until I'm subjected to some infraction … they seem to think it improves me – how could it? I am me – me - Narcissus – I, I cannot be perfected …
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Syrian Vial from the 4th C - today they are made from glass |
Caravaggio created me using chiaroscuro … now he was allowed to pore over me, observe my very movements … so that I, in all my perfetto youth, would be captured tenebroso...
I believe they call it research … to see how dark and grubby this masterpiece of me has become – but look ... I shine so brightly out of the shadowy canvas … you can still see my reflection clearly in the pool – but they keep working, thinking they can buff me up …
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St John the Baptist by Caravaggio (1604) highlighting Tenebrism |
Over the centuries they've dusted me off – then they attack me – it's nearly the 21st century – what do they expect … I am valuable as a masterpiece (that has not been so closely examined).
Yet if only I had known what was to come in the next 24 years … they've lost their creativity … it seems they punch things like keyboards (similar to clavichords) and out appears from the constantly changing mirror in front of them many images of me …
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1977 unfretted Clavichord |
I am me – me - the way Caravaggio painted me so empathetic to my youthful appearance – these 'reproductions' as they are called – do not credit me with Caravaggio's sympatico art-style.
Really they should leave me alone – I enjoy my place on the wall of the National Gallery of Ancient Art, Rome – where everyone can and does so admire me … completely fawning over Caravaggio's creation.
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National Gallery of Ancient Art, Rome |
Wear and Tear – they need to look at their own lives … I've lasted more than 500 years, expect they only live about one fifth of my life.
Oh I'm so sensuously beautiful – and will be forever more … no wear and tear for me … more importantly no ageing.
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Smartphone screen 21st C |
The art work may age – and they can do their damnedest to restore, repair, or conserve – definitively in the era they live in … the technology seems to find things that would not have been found in earlier centuries, but I remain me – "Narcissus".
Wear and Tear begone!
Fine Art Conservation YouTube video by
Julian Baumgartner of Chicago - for anyone interested
Hilary Melton-Butcher
Positive Letters Inspirational Stories