Not Just the Postcards Left Behind

How successful a painting is — judged by the conventional criteria — finally seemed beside the point. It was the journey, not the final destination that mattered. The stages of painting “illustrates arbitrarily, even haphazardly, some of the stops on the route, like cities visited, friends that were met. The image of the artist as a romantic voyager should enthrall the mind’s eye, not just the postcards left behind.”

— from de Kooning: An American Master by Mark Stevens & Annalen Swan