This is my second painting of a local barn and it features a closer look through an open doorway. The composition was not altered from how it appeared in my reference photograph, but fortuitously three significant diagonal features, the rusty gate, the top of the left doorway, and the shadow line from the right, all converged on the open illuminated window visible within the barn. In my photo, there was only some green weeds present beyond the window. This seemed inappropriate for a focal point of the image, so I pondered with playing around and considered a fanciful addition. Maybe some memories from an art history class many years ago sparked a realization that the placement of the open window resembled a feature in the Velázquez’s masterpiece “Las Meninas” (The History and Mystery of ‘Las Meninas’ by Diego…) . I knew immediately that the mysterious figure in the doorway of his painting belonged my in barn window. I was very pleased with the addition, and after the painting was completed I did a search to see whether my inclusion of the doorway figure was original. Of course it wasn’t. I must have had subliminal memories of other artists (Picasso, and Dalí in particular) using a Las Meninas theme, composition and figure(s) in their own paintings. In fact, there is an incredibly rich history of many artists doing this (covers & citations » Diego Velázquez, ‘Las Meninas,’ 1656). I guess it’s difficult to be original these days, but I’m happy to be a very small part of an artistic tradition.