ABSTRACT IMPRESSIONS
It was a copse viewed by the artist from across a river, that much was clear, at first. The way vermillion bled into jade, just so, with emerald swirling around flecks of white and yellow. Birds in trees. Canopies. A switch of sapphire slicing through sandstone: a bridge, unused, captured that I might travel in the artist’s place.
It was wonderful. I wanted to make sure that I had understood it properly. That was where the trouble began.
When I returned to the gallery the next day it had changed. I looked closely. There was no doubting it. I had hear such work was open to interpretation and might seem altered on repeat viewing, but I imposed no new meaning on the canvas. The painting was transformed. I told the guard.
‘This is different,’ I said.
‘From what?’
‘From yesterday.’
‘It hasn’t been changed.’
‘It has changed, though.’
The guard shrugged uneasily and returned to his seat. I sat before the painting and tried to make sense of
