I, Juan de Pareja by Elizabeth Borton de Trevino
Winner, 1966 Newbery Award
Quick Summary
Born a slave, Juan travels to his new master, artist Diego Velazquez, and eventually becomes a respected artist in his own right.
Favorite Quote
Say to yourselves, 'I would rather paint exactly what I see, even if it is ugly, perfectly, than indifferently paint something superficially lovely.'
About the Author
Elizabeth Borton de Trevino wrote several books which she said all "enclose a little kernel of truth ... something that really happened." She received a Bachelors degree from Stanford in Latin American history. Her sons were both involved in I, Juan de Pareja: her son Luis inspired the story with his interest in art and her son Enrique translated the Spanish edition. Her memoir My Heart Lives South tells the story of her marriage and life in Monterrey, Mexico. She died in 2001.
My Project
It is always especially challenging to create an art piece based on a famous artist! For my project I painted a brass frame gold to give it a royal look. I framed a printed self-portrait of Diego and create a paintbrush using a toothpick. I kept the background simple with ivory paint and the date on a plain piece of white paper.
Final Thoughts
I found this book surprisingly interesting. It's somewhat similar to The Single Shard in that it deals with an apprentice/master relationship in the art world. (Although technically, Juan is not an assistant until the end of the story.) I liked hearing about how the world of a royal painter worked and many of the art details.
In a serendipitous moment, the same week I read this book I happened to glance at the dozen or so news headlines on Digg and found a story titled, "Is Velazquez's Las Meninas a Time-Traveling Illusion?" It was fascinating to read a nonfiction account of the artist's life so soon after reading a fictional one.
This is the last Newbery title I'm reading this year. You can see a list of all 50 books I read. Next week I'll have a short blog post about some of the things I've learned about this project and year-long challenges in general.
Your Turn
If you read this book, I'd love to hear what you think in the comments.