Keen Venetian

© 2017 | Oil on Canvas

A software engineer and a Marine, Keen was the first person I painted for this series.

Keen’s presence is stoic – which reminds me of my uncles in Penna.  After learning that he was going to re-locate to Texas within a week, I asked him to be a model.

Since it was several years since I painted a portrait, I decided to use a classical  indirect method – the one I am most comfortable with.

My thought was to contrast Keen’s austere physicality with a more corporal rendering inspired by a Venetian, like Giovanni Bellini, would have used for a Doge.

Although, no doubt, Bellini would have bested this feeble attempt.