Quintessence (1657)

There is something rising within this painting. Not a single shape or identifiable object, but a general surge that seems to lift the material from the lower part of the canvas up to the brightest areas. The entire bottom section is filled with a vast expanse of pink, coral red, and orange, teeming with countless cells. On the left, the pinks nearly glow with fluorescence. In the center, they darken around a vertical flow of green and brown. To the right, they meet a white and yellow area where the cells form a very dense, almost mineral-like network. Yet, this base is not horizontal. It appears to be pushing upward. At the center of the composition rises an irregular mass of turquoise and deep green, like a peninsula standing above the pink terrain. Around it, everything seems to retreat. On the left, a large white stream snakes upward between the pink, turquoise, and a broad zone of yellow-ochre. This ochre area occupies the upper left center, streaked with blues, greens, and fine cellular structures that lend it the appearance of ancient matter dissolving. On the right, by contrast, the blues become more prominent. A massive mass of turquoise and deep blue climbs diagonally toward the upper right corner. Within the blue are several long tongues of orange and reddish-brown, clearly visible against the blue background. Then comes the sky—or at least something that breathes like a sky. The entire upper part is largely white, very pale blue, and pearl gray. Vertical drips rise like smoke or frozen geysers. Throughout, droplets of red-orange paint float. Some are tiny; others, larger, punctuate the light spaces precisely. This composition follows a strange logic: the higher your gaze, the more the matter seems to lose its weight. At the bottom, it is dense, cellular, almost fleshly. In the center, it gathers. At the top, it becomes breath.