The fifth series is intended to take the form of a painterly conversation between two unalike artistic personalities: the one difficult, sullen, opaque, the other extraverted, animated, mercurial. I was strongly affected earlier this summer by a belated awakening to the lapidary beauty of Strauss's Rosenkavalier and Ariadne auf Naxos. These paintings were suggested by the Sachertorte harmonies and Einspänner dissonances that punctuate the discourse of Octavian and the Marschallin.
