274. Figure after Degas(Figur nach Degas) 4 (Copy)

274. Figure after Degas (Figur nach Degas) 4, 2026, Öl auf Leinwand, 20 × 15cm

The sharing of something is one of the slower things in life.

This is another transcription from Degas. I cannot imagine how Degas worked. He made such inventive decisions but nonetheless his work has a mood and a sense of space that I really enjoy looking at, placid yet psychologically complex. Again, I let the hair fall down like hair does, as in the previous one. In the society of 1886 Paris hair was evidently not approached with the same reckless abandon that we expect from things today.

Looking at the original, although it is a pastel drawing of his modern day, it is nonetheless serene but yet it is also loaded. As I look at it, I feel like I am sitting in an old comfy chair, even reclining and putting my feet up, not because of the figure but rather the entire space and situation. I don’t even know if it is possible to paint like that anymore, let alone understand it with today’s vocabulary, for it is so care-worn, hand-mended, perpetually reinvented and exceptionally subtle that I think we barely have eyes for it, in a world of fast things.

I move the brush over the canvas occasionally vaguely in a way that approximates how he made a mark and a spark of recognition brings my own modern hectic life to the quieter side-lane of the Autobahn. I redouble my efforts to try to push the artwork onward without rushing anything whatsoever. Curiosity is sated only in patiently performed activities, like opening a rare book or family heirloom. Between painting the arm and the leg I would even like to read a chapter of a book, but unfortunately, I am working relentlessly toward the exhibition opening on Saturday