You reminded me of something I completely forgot. I have another painting to show you, if I can only find it . . .

“The green woman…with her hands on her own knees… looks self-contained.”

But they are not! Her right hand is back near her rump leaving herself open for the reclining figures touch.

The green woman looks wise, mature. She gives me a parental feeling. With her hands on her own knees, she looks self-contained. I love her posture, both turning away and towards the younger woman. The curves in her posture remind me of David’s musical painting above.

The eyes of the blue woman are searching. Through her right hand, she grounds herself on herself, through her left hand, she connects with the other woman.

An older person helping a younger person find her own way.

Thank you for the lovely interpretation of the painting. It is astonishing to me how you can make me look at the picture in an entirely new way!

I believe that the viewer does a lot more work than we normally give him or her credit for. The painting is completed in the mind, each viewer can become an artist. I noticed recently how much Steve’s rock photos and Mark’s café painting “changed” with each viewing. I wonder if we take viewing more seriously as an active process, would that change and enhance our appreciation? Ed also has an interesting post along these lines today.

Thanks for your thoughtful comment. I see the need to clarify. I thought it redundant to say “Introspection tells me that painting for me is not about making a statement . . .” But I can see the ambiguity when leaving out the “for me”.

My point is not that the picture does not make a statement. My point is that I do nothave that statement crystalized in my mind (say in a verbal form) before I begin, or even when the painting is finished. When I say that “painting is not about making a statement” I refer to the process itself. Painting, the process, is more like asking a question — and the question is, what is the statement? The finished painting itself should, I agree, contain some kind of statement (at least one), but what that statement is is something to be discovered by both the artist and the viewer — at least, this is how I feel.

How to relate this to art that has an explicit statement-making business? I think it doesn’t change the question at all really. What separates one artwork from another is not necessarily the gross statement (e.g., a reminder of the transience of life, the futility of pleasure and the certainty of death repeated endlessly in the vanitas). What is interesting is how each artist discovers how to make a variation on the statement.