“Graffiti Palimpsest” : Lisbon, Portugal, 5th September 2011
Yet more of that Portuguese street art.
This one stood out for several reasons.
First, the upper part resembles the type of characters who populate the paintings of 16th century artist El Greco. This actually has a double resonance, since those El Greco characters always remind me of a friend of mine (who’d better remain nameless!).
Then, I like how the cruder orange picture in the foreground kind of compliments the earlier work, in that it now appears that the man is wearing a bright pair of dungarees and has a misplaced heart.
This all makes me think of palimpsests, old writings or drawings where new work has been composed over older, giving a document its own history, which is exactly what’s going on here too.
You can see a larger version of this here.

