To V. L.

At times I would see an incipient, prenatal profile, outlined in firm brushstrokes, and although it anticipated me monstrously, I knew that with many decisions and patient adjustments, it would begin to take on an undeniable resemblance.

But even in its allusive, nascent state, the portrait already revealed me, through a kind of magic assimilation. Every time, even before she had finished, my face would somehow be captured.

Moira painted me many times. She drew me many times. Each time I learned to disappear. With each portrait I died. But I owe my rebirths—of this, too, I’m certain—to each new version of me Moira made.

Each abandoned drawing, each abandoned painting, struck me as a kind of gestation and miscarriage. Thus I came to know aborted versions of myself: I’d start to live, I’d wade into the waters of a sea of lines, a gash would appear across my face, I’d somehow recuperate my own genetic process, I’d acquire a gastrular consciousness, I’d start to throb, and then suddenly, Moira, in a movement in which she, too, would lose herself, would get rid of me: she’d tear the paper to shreds or erase me from the canvas with her painting knife.

“That pose is very him,” said the maestro, Colombo. He visits us often. I noticed that I really do usually sit like this. But no one should lose their innocence about the way they sit.

In Castiglione, I read: “Members of certain tribes don’t allow themselves to be photographed; they fear that it’s a ruse to snatch away their souls.”

Sometimes a bird comes to the studio and then, just as suddenly, disappears.

Colombo was here. We talked at length about Modigliani’s relationship with Jeanne Hébuterne.

At first that bird which now frequents the studio (each time it’s different) would bring with it a feeling of both unease and peace. The unease came from a dual heaviness: the surprise of its unexpected appearance, and later, or simultaneously, the fear that it would never return. The peace, simply enough, was a translation of the calm we felt at the sight of it.

But now its visits, which don’t obey rhythms of temporal regularity but rather a cadence all their own, create an atmosphere of absolute safety. I would say that, in some way, the bird is protecting us with its inscrutable companionship.

Secrets of the craft: first, smear your paint decisively, freely, don’t hold back. Then finish the shape by defining its outline from the background, drawing it from outside. This is the only way to prevent the painting from resembling a sketch with color laid over it.

There’s a particular way we can look at ourselves: like we look at everyone else, with all their stupidity, meanness, depravity, even their greatness—oneself as a synthesis of all one’s fellow beings. And there’s also another way: as if we were an island, or a monument, always the same as ourself, only multiplied within each unchangeable face of a polyhedron made of identical mirrors.

When I shave, I avoid looking at myself straight-on and all at once. I don’t want to know which face I’ll show myself. I’ve noticed that sometimes Moira captures my whole face. Or she changes it unforgivably.

The maestro, Colombo, arrived at around 6 o’clock. The light had dwindled, exaggerating the colors. “Destroy his face, Moira,” he said. And then, as though it were a mere game of construction and destruction, Moira smacked where my face was painted on the canvas with her palm, and the oil paint—fresh, pasty, fragrant—smeared in a way that was somewhat arbitrary and somewhat measured. My face looked as though a grenade had exploded nearby, deforming it in the blast.

When we’re tired, and calm, and we look at each other without the weight of the painting, the easel, the frame, I realize I couldn’t live without Moira’s clarity: “The only thing that matters to me is painting.”

This morning, the bird—which was blue—stopped for a while on the laurel tree on our terrace. Then it perched on the lemon tree planter, also for a good while. Finally, it took off.

Moira and I believe art is useful for glimpsing the Divine.

I can describe how a painting starts. The white canvas. A bit of sandpaper. Moira always keeps her palette tidy. She puts on a carpenter’s apron. She motions for me to sit down. We’ve developed a style based on obedience. I sit. I tell her to put her hair up. She puts it up while she looks at me with an outward smile that serves only to narrow her eyes. She goes through all the motions before picking up a brush in order to pull away from me. She looks for visual distance. An ideal distance. Later, that distance and no other will appear on the canvas, and then it won’t matter how close or how far the spectator is from the painting: the distance between the painted object and the eyes of the beholder will always be the same.

She drifts away, in her eyes she drifts away, until I begin to feel lonely as a planet. That’s where we part. And so much so that suddenly, only a musical phrase we turn to for connection reunites us in a fleeting glance. And I hear the brushstrokes on the canvas, I smell the oil, I sense the painting knife’s journey across the layer of paint. Small clouds pass by, and I shape them, correct them, stretch them until Moira seeks me out with her eyes and, without a word, gestures for me to reinvigorate my pose: with a movement of her chin, she asks me to lift my head. Using her palette knife, she mixes the colors to cover a wide surface. I hear the music, and I also hear a slick sound, like the glide of a loving caress.

Sometimes I wish I could be the way Moira paints me. Sometimes I notice I look increasingly like a certain version she has of me. Sometimes I dream with one of the faces she’s painted.

In love there’s a search that resolves not only in terms of the lovers’ union and in an assertion of each one’s solitude, but also in a kind of breath that comes from deep within, at once confirming and snatching away their sense of self.

Moira, me, each of us in our solitude, the two of us united in our solitude, united in that breath that comes to our mouths from our deepest depths, we understand ourselves to be me, myself; her, herself; the two of us, one; each one, us two.

The artist and reality, or lovers—why do they pursue each other so fiercely? In both cases, that merciless search has a sacramental aspiration.

Certainly it’s not enough to paint well. However, if you can’t paint well, you can’t paint a great painting. So first and foremost, humble perseverance. Returning time and again until the material and tools become a language that expresses exactly what the eyes see, so that later it’s possible to set down what the eyes don’t know they see.

Some drawings convey the mere outline of a form. The line, then, has a uniform thickness. Others, the most dynamic ones, use the pressure of the line to indicate form. Still others are a mere search, and hundreds of lines must be drawn in order to find the only one that should reign.

In general, the healthiest people go through the stories of their lives feeling a certain immortality. The vanity of seeking knowledge, the madness of intelligence, the clumsy probing of metaphysical secrets, it all deprives us of many pleasures. For example, the pleasure of letting the miracle of the world pass in awe before our humble senses, of loving it without the stupefying attempt to unravel it, mingling with the metaphysical condition like a docile substance that adjusts to the passing of time, to the changing conditions of space, to the necessity of death, and to the wise hope that there exists a supreme sanity that conceals and reveals itself in the subtlest hints: the intimate scent of saffron, the glint in a horse’s eye, the tone of a phrase, and even the inscrutable emptiness of a sleepless night.

It strikes me that to merely be in the world entails a wise renunciation: the sharpening of our attention with no motive but to nourish ourselves with reality as though it were sacred sustenance.

The fleetingness of things and beings. We love beings with a lasting glint in their eyes. Perhaps painting could rescue the eternity of an instant. But no. Everything is doomed to failure. All we can do is hope for something that, though it isn’t ours, represents us before eternity—like a face, this one indeed eternal, wrapped in a nameless fog.

To draw something, you must understand how it’s made, the connections between its elements. Only then is it revealed how one form fits into another. A neck, for example, into shoulders.

We have large windows in the studio. It’s nighttime. With artificial light, we can use the windows as mirrors to keep an eye on the paintings.

To learn to draw what can’t be seen. For example, a neck, from the front, will only be cylindrical if the contours, rather than parallel, are drawn as a parenthesis, although later the base will have to be split so it can be placed on the shoulders. (Reality can be admirable until one has to adhere to the laws of depicting it. But one must have the courage to destroy it to create a work of art, to make visible what it—reality—conceals.)

On our terrace we have lemon trees, a mulberry bush, aromatic herbs, jasmine, wisteria, laurel trees, and an olive tree. Today, the bird stopped again for a long time on the laurel. We watched it from the studio, where we were sitting. It was even-tempered, still in a way that was almost stonelike, and its eyes were inexpressive; its translucent pink feathers, smooth and shiny. Then suddenly, as if compelled from without, the bird took a short, swift flight to the mulberry tree. It was hidden in the leaves. We couldn’t see it. But we knew it was there. Moira came to my armchair and both of us fell silent.

Moira was drawing. She asked me questions. I gave my opinions; I hinted at a solution. She did the exact opposite of what I had suggested. “You were right,” she said. But once again, she’d done exactly the opposite of what I’d proposed. This happened over and over. Maybe an artist needs to believe their discoveries are always unrelated to their choices.

In saintliness, there must be a dose of something very similar to pride combined with the requisite humility. The same holds true in the realization of the work. The important thing is to detest easy satisfaction as much as the pride of perfection.

After several days of fruitless attempts, Moira has fallen into a depression. She’s never done such poor work. When she did make something worthwhile, she’d destroy it with a mistake. A sort of clumsiness enervated her. Finally—like I said—she seemed to have given up. She sat down next to me. She was the picture of helplessness. “Things are going badly,” she said. And then she added, “We’ll just have to wait.”

It’s an unfair fight the artist always loses, so much anxiety, so much waiting. Because neither skill, nor effort, nor bravery will suffice. Meanwhile, an ounce of grace is enough to produce the miracle.

It’s the same thing with the bird. Why, if it’s always a different color, a different size, and behaving differently, are we sure that it’s always the same one? In my portraits, sometimes I have two mouths. Other times, a single eye. In some portraits, I have more than one nose. I ask myself: What makes that person who Moira paints always me?

From what I’ve observed, I have certain features that could distinguish me. Still, in some portraits, those potential singularities are nowhere to be found. And so I ask myself again, what is it that makes them me? What makes me the same as them?

There’s nothing worse in an artist than weakness of character. To tend toward self-satisfaction can be fatal for their work. This afternoon, Moira and I argued bitterly.

The idea that the artist is only an instrument, a medium through which the work can materialize. Therefore, to work as the revealer will require a particular state of purity and special conditions as well (Moira speaks of a scalpel: sharpened and sanitized).

Ongoing practice, so that the hand, in the painter’s case, can express with machine-like accuracy what the eye sees. Any moral judgement, on the other hand, will be an obstacle to the work at least as serious as clumsiness.

The only keys are happiness or inner purity (they’re the same), steady practice, and to know to wait. And during the wait, consistent work to keep the hand agile, the eye lucid, the attention taut.

And then suddenly, as if by chance, the mystery slips through with its ounce of miracle. That’s the work. For all these reasons—Colombo says when we discuss this—what differentiates an artisan’s work from a work of art is an element foreign to whoever made the work.

An artist is praised for that which does not belong to them.

Once again, the aleatory. A painting will often take a turn from its initial idea and, upon showing a new possibility, offer a new solution. Then the painter submits to the plan the material makes on its own.

What was going to be a human figure turns into a bouquet of flowers. The first idea gets cast aside, and the will of the painting (or chance?), which has acted all on its own, carries the artist along.

But don’t think this implies a lack of rigor. This is evidence that the artist’s eye is alert and, at the same time, able to see with innocence.

Moira has just painted two portraits of me, one large and another small. The large one is more in line with her original concept: it’s more allusive, has more depth, little contrast, and the setting is totally unrealistic.

The small one, however, is more pictorial. It uses lots of paint, lots of color, and the image is clean and vigorous.

There’s something worth noting. While one portrait articulates a being who is majestic and serene, capable of seeing planes of reality that I myself certainly cannot, the other has a worldly, pragmatic expression, as if it were the head of a politician.

It’s clearer to me now that all the portraits Moira makes or could make of me will show nothing more than my absence, that all she can paint are the faces of the people who I’m not.

Moira, painter, poet, tries to do the infeasible, grasp the ungraspable, touch the intangible. A staircase without steps. Hers is a thirst for water that barely comes to her in forgettable dreams. Meanwhile, she keeps searching my face, just as she searches the flight of a bird, for what can only be found deep in the earth, when our love is a damp seed awaiting the heat of the sun and the white light of day and the black light of night. And then she, alone, alone, Moira alone, understands at last what in some way she knows, that each search has a common destiny: the discovery of something with neither shape nor color, rather a singular presence that resembles nothing else and will not answer to any name.

Suddenly the bird crosses before our eyes. We watch it pass by without beating its wings. Gliding. It has a metallic, gray, or bluish color. It whizzes through the air like a bullwhip smoothly extended to its full length. It did a tour of the studio and departed with its motionless wings open.

(Sometimes it traces a diagonal from one corner of the ceiling to the other. Other times it flies swiftly and vertically, climbing or falling. It’s always different. I have seen it white as snow. One time, Moira saw it violet. Together, we’ve seen it black, blue, and even red.)

We paint at night. I pose about six feet away from the easel. There’s a spotlight to one side. Dust particles float silvery in the air like tiny stars. I have a thought, stupid and swiftly discardable: that in relation to eternity, between the span of those particles before me and that of the planets where civilizations, wars, and cultures—and everything that, for example, has happened and happens on our planet—the word time is a meaningless equivalency; that, in historical terms, even in those minuscule bodies my eyes see, there could have existed a reality with beings who posed a metaphysics, that among them there could have been a redeemer with a sacrament, and saints, and demons, and plans for love and hate, for heaven and hell.

Moira is painting and (once again I refuse my temptation to fantasy) in every particle of pigment is the same story of a species’ horror and faith, hope and doubt, devastation and death. But here and now—I tell myself—responsible as we are for our happenings within a possible time bounded by the limits of our own impermanent natures, God—I think—is an urgency, an absence, a request, an emptiness, a desperate reality Moira tries to capture, or at least allude to, through the color of my shirt, a correspondence of lines, a balance of chromatic conditions among the infinite number a few mixable colors offer.

Today it was white. Without flapping its wings it seemed to describe a line: as if it had passed through a wall and then exited through the window, but not by flying. Rather, as if Moira—I didn’t see this, she told me about it—had needed to transport it with a sort of gliding motion, using the power of her gaze. Because it had seemed like it wanted to fall or stop for good in the house, and we wouldn’t have been able to tolerate that.

Through the ages, painters have told countless stories about the model. It’s a starting point. It’s there to be destroyed. It’s something to turn your back on. It’s the exact opposite of all that.

The tempera, the paper, the water jug, the red-handled paint brushes, ideas about the quality of the paper, the music, Moira working atop her high wooden stool, the night, the plants must be watered, spring is beginning. Now the morning light has shed that thick gray consistency we had to endure all winter. The light is clearer. Dawn carries the warmth of the sun. It’s October. I think Moira will come to understand that her so-called chromatic coldness, her whites, could, if one so desired, be compared to a hot iron. But that shouldn’t matter either, because art should be free of any concerns regarding temperature. Its timelessness matters most.

I’d like the privilege of describing the magic surrounding our bird, which is looking at me now with its round eyes, three feet away, perched on the rim of a pewter jug with paint brushes in it. Today it has bluish feathers. I notice it swaying softly to maintain a difficult balance.

Tonight Moira turned off the lights because the moon is full and its light comes in clearly through the windows. The plants on the terrace draw their shadows on the ceiling.

I ask Moira to turn on the light again and the philodendrons we keep in the studio appear, projecting their shadows in the same place where the shadows of the lemon and mulberry trees were before. We turn the lights on and off, over and over again, and the landscape on the ceiling shifts in such a way that we feel dizzy, as if facing an imminent shipwreck. You can imagine the studio: it’s like a ship amid a storm, amid forces that seem to demand chaos.

Colombo, the maestro, said something about chaos that, to my taste, is arguable: “Each time an artist grapples with a new work, their problem lies in organizing chaotic elements. What is not organized chaos cannot be called a work of art.”

I can’t lay still in the sun, without fidgeting, like Moira does, like women do, who seem given over to inexplicable hope. So I went to work on the plants, pulling weeds, removing dry leaves, stirring up the soil in the flowerpots. At this time of year, the wind tends to afflict the plants: in the case of the wisteria, for example, the leaves become mortified to the point of agony, and you have to douse them with plenty of water in the evening. But since the sun was still out, a hot and intense sun, I loosened the soil with my knife and got lost in my thoughts while Moira, lying still, let herself be taken by the sun.

It must have been about 2 o’clock in the afternoon, and we were in that country silence that sometimes comes to the city and seems to confuse time and space. Suddenly, Moira, in one of those abrupt movements of hers that no longer really faze me (perhaps because I’ve come to think of them as acts of inner obedience), got up and went inside the house.

I continued turning the soil with my knife. I found a stone in the olive tree’s planter. It’s a huge planter. I noticed resistance against the tip of my knife. That rock might interfere with the normal growth of the roots. I carefully determined the extent of the stone, like a surgeon examining a cyst’s edges so as to remove it in one piece. At last, I felt the stone loosen. I pulled it out with my fingers and felt the warm soil around it. Then I heard the cry. I turned, and there it was. It had an orange beak. The wind was ruffling its crest. It looked dazed, as if it were seeing everything for the first time: reality, the trees, the river, the space, and the freedom and abyss they all entail.

Crouched under the roof of the balcony, I softly called out to Moira. But when she came it had already flown away. I thought I had lied to her. Or I was afraid that Moira would think I had lied to her. It was so large, so new, so beautiful, it was so detached from the world, so alien to things that any description would have misrepresented it.

Moira stayed there with me. I assured her, somewhat apologetically, that it had been very different this time. I think, in a way, it terrified me to have seen it on my own. I think I needed Moira as witness. I think secretly I was certain the bird only visited us so Moira could see it.

But it came back. Trembling, it installed itself in the same place on the railing where it had first appeared. It let itself be seen by us both. Moira hugged me. We watched it, holding our breath. I think it finally looked at us, and a second later, it took off in an almost vertical flight we didn’t see because we couldn’t lift our gaze.

There’s an arrangement of dry leaves and pomegranates in a vase I can hardly see behind a pile of books. I’m sitting in my armchair. I look at the portrait we’ve been working on all day. It seems to float in space. Today, while I posed, I saw the bird pause on my table. It was almost transparent. I didn’t say anything to Moira, so as not to distract her.

It’s already dark. Outside it’s raining in that tumultuous way it usually does in the summer. ♦

Excerpted from SLOW ELEPHANTS OF MILAN by ÁNGEL BONOMINI. Copyright © 2026 by Ángel Bonomini. Excerpted by permission of Transit Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.