I am working on two large canvases simultaneously. One of them is nearly finished, the other I have only just started. I move back and forth between them. The challenges I encounter in the new painting come as a welcome relief from the problems I am confronting in the earlier one. In the first picture, an elegantly dressed woman perches on a footstool in front of a fire. She is gazing at the naked figure of a small boy—her son, we suppose. There is a coolness in her look, an aloofness, as if she is holding something in check. On the right of the picture a second woman is seated on a sofa with a much smaller child. She is dressed in more workaday clothes than the first. Her flat, scuffed shoes contrast sharply with the other’s polished leather and heels. Unlike the first woman, she is fully engaged with the child she is holding. She has her arms round him, trying to restrain him from reaching for a toy. The older boy stares at the child. Although his stance indicates that his attention is directed toward his mother, his head is turned away toward this child. The toys—a horse, a book, a boat—are arranged to fill the space between the figures, as if to eliminate any distance between them. The woman on the footstool has a mirror and handkerchief in her hand. I cannot decide if these are intended for the boy or are part of her own preparation for leaving. Something about the way she gazes at the boy tells us she will soon depart. There is resignation as well as wistfulness in her expression. She is studying the boy far too intently, instead of clasping him to her. It is as if she knows that in order to detach herself she must restrain from loving him.

There are no children in the second picture. Here my focus is exclusively the two women. On the left, a nude reclines on a sofa, resting, perhaps, from her work of posing as a model. On the right the woman is fully dressed, staring at the arrangement of fruit on the table before her. She might be the artist, though there is no sign of any painting materials and her clothes seem altogether too sophisticated. She appears utterly indifferent to the woman on the sofa. Whatever she finds in the fruit bowl preoccupies her entirely.