I know its an absurd statement to say – “Masterpiece” or “Greatest Painting Ever Made”. It’s obscene, and not in a good way, I admit this.

I grew up seeing the paintings of Munch and minor works of Northern European artists in the flesh, most of them tipping the scale at maudlin/austere.

Turn left outside the Jules Maidoff Palazzo in Florence†, walk to the first traffic light, turn left and walk up the hill until you reach via della Collona. Go right, soon you will arrive at # 9.

This rather battered old reproduction hangs in my studio. I’ve owned it since I was five, which is when I first and last saw the original.

It was on a trip to the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1982 that I first encountered what is now my favorite riddle.

This giant moon-blossom zings a beam straight into my forehead, lasering a third eye that I didn’t know I had before.

But this painting has stuck with me precisely for its literalness. Pontormo has painted the body of Christ three times over.

Seeing an Annunciation painting in Italy is about as easy as it was to find hair gel in a locker at my midwestern high school in the 80s.

The amazing spatial adjustments of the trees on the left had for me an energy and restraint at the same time that seemed almost to be a choreographed ballet.

Stretch, a moment, a hide taut between threads and wind the threads around a wooden frame. Stitch this skin, recently nestled over sinew and muscle and organ and bone...