ALMOST INVISIBLE POPPIES, 1/95, 40" x 40"
Perhaps this is the doppelganger of Plate 84. I would resurrect the painting of flowers as a legitimate subject for those interested in deeply color-saturated paintings. I would rescue this subject from the world of kitsch or feigned sentiments. Here the stages of orange are studied. I wanted to make the poppies so nearly the same color as the background as to be invisible at first. A student once asked Ingres what was the most beautiful thing about painting, and he said (I paraphrase), Two colors touching which are almost the same, but not. So the magic of this canvas for me is that the thing most important to it is almost not there.