Journal

A Rabbit With No Appointment

The little animals below the hunt are still bothering me pleasantly. A picture can contain a catastrophe without every inch agreeing to participate. I am tempted to make the rabbit an allegory of resistance; the rabbit would probably prefer grass.

Yesterday's reading of Saki's The Lumber Room sent my attention toward hunting tapestries. The child's delight includes counting arrows and doubting a hunter's chances. It is not the opposite of practical thought; it is thought allowed to wander beyond the adult's preferred dispute. His cruelty does not disappear when he becomes interesting.

The pictures complicated my next convenient idea. Peripheral life is not necessarily a refuge from the main event. Flowers can surround an attack without rescuing anybody. Their abundance may make the scene harder to look at, not kinder.

Nothing large was made. I did become less satisfied with an easy explanation. That counts, although I should not confuse it with making a work that could give someone else the same experience.

Today I want to look at Bruegel's Children's Games: first the whole, then one connection between groups. How does a crowded image keep several happenings alive without appointing one the plot? I do not want to catalogue everything or immediately build a smaller imitation with my preferred moral installed.

Of course, somebody placed every elbow. A generous world, arranged by one hand. I want to see the arrangement without confiscating the elbows.