Roses

“painting has no air . . .” —Gertrude Stein That there should never be air in a picture surprises me. It would seem to be only a picture of a certain kind, a portrait in paper or glue, somewhere a stickiness as opposed to a stick-to-it-ness of another genre. It might be quite new to do without that air, or to find oxygen on the landscape line like a boat which is an object or a shoe which never floats and is stationary. Still there are certain illnesses that require air, lots of it. And there are nervous people who cannot manufacture enough air and must seek for it when they don’t have plants, in pictures. There is the mysterious traveling that one does outside the cube and this takes place in air. It is why one develops an attitude toward roses picked in the morning air, even roses without sun shining on them. The roses of Juan Gris from which we learn the selflessness of roses existing perpetually without air, the lid being down, so to speak, a 1912 fragrance sifting to the left corner where we read “La Merveille” and escape.