Draw God

Later I would learn that Uccello painted the Battle of San Romano with tempera on wood panel in 1435, a scene recounting the victory of the Florentines over the Sienese.

But walking through the Louvre that day I didn’t know any of that. Frankly, the painting’s spirited clash of metal, charging horses, flapping banners appealed little to my pastoral, peace-loving sensibilities. But it was that boy sitting there….

If it hadn’t been for that cross-legged boy sitting on the floor of the gallery, a few feet from this masterpiece that purportedly once hung in Napoleon’s bathroom, I likely wouldn’t have given the work more than a passing glance.

But when I realized what this child attempted in the circling of tourists and foreign languages and the clicking of shutters, I lingered long, intrigued.

What I witnessed brushed me, dyed me, soaked into the fabric of me.

Actually, the young boy didn’t gaze on Uccello’s painting either. I never saw him look directly at it. Instead, this boy of perhaps ten turned slightly to peer at the canvas beside him. An artist had propped up an easel in front of Uccello’s Battle of San Romano, carefully dipped her brush into the palette atop a stool, and painstakingly copied every stroke of Uccello’s unto her canvas.

And this boy copied every stroke of hers.

By Ann Voscamp

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So what do I do when no one is looking?

J.P. Hayes is as honest as we like to think we are
By Jay Busbee

The true test of a man's character is what he does when no one is watching. John Wooden said that, or maybe it was Spider-Man. Whatever, it still holds true; being noble and upstanding is easy enough when you've got people watching, but when you're alone with yourself, when you could do the wrong thing (or avoid the right thing) and get away with it, well -- that's when you find out what kind of person you are.

By that standard, then,

J.P. Hayes is among the best that sports has to offer. More.