When I began with the idea sketches for Denouement, in 1984,  it was way beyond my abilities. Yet, my passion  for  radiance drove my inspiration and drew over a hundred sketches of every nuance and detail that found its way into the painting. Denouement is a story about what I think is the most sublime moment that one can experience in life: love.  I worked on Denouement for about 3 years, Monday through Friday, working for money on the weekends. There are too many levels of things that go into make this painting for me to discuss them all here but I will discuss a few of them.

The composition is a cross on a diagonal, the axis line between the two chairs and  the main focus on the line that connects the man and woman. In my knowledge of art history I have never come across a composition of figures in this manner. But my aim wasn't uniqueness for its own sake, rather, the composition was about connecting the two of them in a dynamic and fluid way. Though this is a detailed oil painting I didn't want it to have a brownish Old Master feeling to it, so I relied heavily on making pastel studies of every aspect of the painting. The consequence was pure, dynamic, yet, subtle color and light. Another aspect about the theme of the painting related to color, there is nothing moody or dark about love for me, it is about colorful radiance. Another aspect related to the color was that to keep the brilliance of the color and light and have it look natural with the objects feeling "right" in their locations I had to develop my own theory of color transparency; to integrate the whole thing.  (I gave a lecture on this subject to a satellite conference of the European Vision Scientist Conference in Glasgow, Scotland.)

"Denouement" means an unraveling of a knot and the wrap up conclusion, after the climax, of a literary work; and I think it fits very well the after-glow of love making.  On a lighter note, I had some debate about the images that would hang on the walls. One of them is a Picasso, of a young circus performer gleefully whipping her horse. The other is a serene land/seascape by Cezanne of the south of France.