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Show 164 water lilies. Simon acknowledged formal representation, but his subjects- fairly pedestrian things, rocks, shells, flowers-were only pretexts for the movement of light and color across his surfaces, which were flat as tapestries. There was neither horizon nor depth of perspective in his landscapes. In fact you could hardly call them landscapes; the colors and forms dissolved into each other and into backgrounds which themselves separated into mists that moved from pure, strong blue and hazy violet through stronger violets that became almost purple at the center of interest and then evolved to a golden green only inches away. You couldn't always tell where a surface ended either because the light got in the way. In his still-lifes Simon was evidently unaware that objects themselves had surfaces which could be broken down and reassembled or that contemporary art had ever passed through that awareness and come out the other side. The surfaces of objects, in his still-lifes, were thin membranes behind which primal suns burned. There was one painting in particular, a conch shell that lay against a background of orange and turquoise sand like the open mouth of a blast furnace, that Lorin ate his heart out for not having done himself. It hung, surrounded by larger canvases, on the wall of Simon's apartment where Lorin had seen it frequently. The incandescent face of the shell was crossed by a gentle wisp of orange which outlined the overhang, and the light pouring down from inside the shell was if possible more intense than the light coming out of the face. It was an astounding displacement of shadow, and the hateful part was that he knew Simon had done it on whim and probably never noticed it afterwards. A trace of muted violet had toned down the floor of the shell, and the floor itself was padded with sand and the sand was sprinkled with tiny rocks and dry twigs in a gesture toward representation that Lorin thought bordered a little on condescension. It was noteworthy, and other |