As I was writing my last entry I realized how similar an experience I had recently with a Balthus painting. It wasn’t the same type of experience but in both circumstances the hands of the figures activate a more complete story. The painting entitled Led beaux jours, depicted a young girl reclining, her left hand extended holding a mirror and her right hand fell heavy over the side of the couch. In the corner is a mantle and a fireplace, a man is crouching to tend to the fire. While this implies an underlying narrative, it is the hand hanging to the side of the couch that is my focus. The girl’s body language seems confident, vane, and anxious to experience life (perhaps to soon). The room is too quiet causing the viewer to revisit the girls face, as she is half gazing into the hand held mirror. The painting is disquieting and then I saw it: the whole painting was in that hanging hand. The hand was tentative, formally it hung freely in the space around it, but it was flexed. The fingers were spread apart, fully extended. She was totally tense and young when you saw that hand. It defied everything the girl portrayed otherwise.

I appreciated the time it took to unfold the story of this painting. The narrative may be obvious but the emotive quality adds a level that seems worth painting about. This surpasses a gimmick. While so many works of art center on disquieting events, some are too easily identified. They are factual: bad things happen and our world is disgusting. Of course it is, but why do we care? The problem with this work in my opinion, is that it misses the humanity that makes this disgusting world worth redeeming. If nothing is at stake, morals and justice are pointless. Strong work is timeless; it hangs in a place between socially challenging and strikingly personal. It reminds us of why humanity is worth saving, whether that means pointing out that there is a problem, or emphasizing that sometimes beauty also exists.