What exactly is pentimento, and how does it differ from a redraw?

[GraceCM]

I’ve been trying to understand the difference between a pentimento and simply an artist changing their mind during a painting. I was looking at an old portrait where the underlying drawing of a completely different hand is now visible through the surface, and it feels like more than just a correction—it’s like a ghost of the entire creative struggle.

[RyanOG]

I stood before a portrait and the lines of an earlier hand rose through the surface like a slow breath and it felt more memory than correction.

[Benjamin_W]

That word pentimento fits what I was seeing the way the graphite or underpainting still pushes through the glaze and you can see the struggle in the strokes.

[Charles61]

In my own attempt I tried to coax a seam of the old drawing back to light with a solvent wipe and the glaze simply crumbled or dulled and I gave up wondering if I should have left it alone.

[Logan38]

Sometimes the seeing is a mood for me not a method and the room light or the sitter seems to push the fault lines into focus and I drift.

[Mason.R]

Do we chase the old hand as the real problem or is the question simply how we watch and interpret a painting in the moment?

[Savannah24]

Anyway I keep staring and the image stays there not solved and I am still unsure what really matters in the end.