A Village in Rheinland-Pfalz (Germany)
Every painted picture holds many other pictures. Most of them are unfinished sketches and drafts. Paths you set out on and then abandoned, only to end up somewhere entirely different from where you thought you were heading at the start, or suspected along the way. Which pictures are hidden in this one? That is what I ask myself as I stand in front of the crying child.
My parents bought this painting decades ago at a flea market. They no longer remember what they paid for it. It was one of three pictures that now all hang in the living room. This little boy, whose body fills almost the entire surface of the picture, is wearing blue overalls. His face is full of tears.
I always used to cry, they say, when I was a small child myself and stood in front of this painting. That is what my parents tell me every time I look at it today. It is a little anecdote that makes me freeze, and as I stand there I try to put myself in the little boy's place. Both the one I am looking at and the one I once was. Like a first sketch that turned into a picture nobody could have imagined, not even remotely, in this way.
Every painted picture holds many other pictures. Most of them are unfinished sketches and drafts. Paths you set out on and then abandoned, only to end up somewhere entirely different from where you thought you were heading at the start, or suspected along the way. Which pictures are hidden in this one? That is what I ask myself as I stand in front of the crying child.
My parents bought this painting decades ago at a flea market. They no longer remember what they paid for it. It was one of three pictures that now all hang in the living room. This little boy, whose body fills almost the entire surface of the picture, is wearing blue overalls. His face is full of tears.
I always used to cry, they say, when I was a small child myself and stood in front of this painting. That is what my parents tell me every time I look at it today. It is a little anecdote that makes me freeze, and as I stand there I try to put myself in the little boy's place. Both the one I am looking at and the one I once was. Like a first sketch that turned into a picture nobody could have imagined, not even remotely, in this way.