What is pentimenti?

Pentimenti is when artists show hidden layers under their final painting, like a secret message from long ago.

Imagine you're drawing on a piece of paper with crayons. You start by drawing a blue sky, but then you decide to add some white clouds on top. Now, if you look closely, you might still see the blue peeking through the white, that’s pentimenti!

Think of a painting like an ice cream sundae. The artist adds one flavor after another, chocolate, vanilla, sprinkles, just like layers in a painting. Sometimes, the bottom flavors still show through, even though they're covered by newer ones.

This happens because artists sometimes don’t fully cover the old colors with new ones. It’s like when you draw over something but leave parts of it visible, you can almost see the first drawing hiding behind the second one!

Pentimenti is a fun way for artists to show that their painting has history, and it makes us wonder what they were thinking when they made those choices!