pentimento

Definitions

The presence of traces of a previous work in an artistic or literary work; especially (painting) an image which has been painted over but is still detectable.

Equivalents

Examples

“The companion of this picture is the Madonna dressing the Infant, with Joseph planing a board⟳ in the back-ground; a performance though inferior in style to the former, not less original from the pentimenti still discoverable in the two principal figures.”

“She thought of the painting in the shop⟳, the pentimento. Her life, the one she had so carefully planned for herself had crumbled like⟳ the paint⟳ on the surface.”

“[T]he presence of a pentimento is an extremely valuable entity which supports the conclusion that a painting is an original composition – so, by inference, therefore, refuting any later suggestion that the painting could be the work⟳ of a copyist, who would have⟳ been engaged upon copying an existing painting as seen! The identification of a pentimento in an artwork can occur⟳ in one of two ways: by analytical interrogation of the subsurface using penetrative radiation such as IRR or XRD, or by direct⟳ visual observation, where the overlaying paint⟳ has worn away […]”

CEFR level