Detente

This painting is one of a series of montages comprised of different, seemingly non-associated, images. Sometimes the images are subdued in double exposure (try to find the smile of a young maiden and salute of a soldier to a fallen comrade) and other times up front and rendered in different styles. When I make these paintings, there is no set plan. I contemplate the work and add images as seems fit. When completed, a story emerges and, in turn, a title.
In this painting two elderly gentlemen are "at ease", which in French is "detente", against a turbulent historical backdrop. That is my reading. Yours may be different, which, of course, is a case-in-point of the idea that a work is completed by its viewers.

"Detente", 2007, 36"x48", oil on canvas.