From Velasquez #9

New York painter and printmaker Peri Schwartz studied Boston University’s School of Fine Arts. In this recent work she reproduces a famous painting from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, a collection she undoubtedly knows well from her student days. The inspiration is a portrait by the Spanish painter Diego Velázquez of Luis de Góngora y Argote of 1622. Schwartz’s painterly monoprint mimics in printed ink every brushstroke and pentimento in the original canvas. This is on display particularly in the play of shadow and light on the sitter’s face and in the background of the work. She also captures the physical appearance and intense expression of the man Velazquez depicted, a prominent Spanish poet and cleric at the Spanish royal court.