You Must Have A “Statement”

GN:What made you choose a fifteenth-century painting as a model and create a sequence based on Titian’s Annunciation?

GR: Because there’s something about this painting, or any painting, that grabs me if they’re good–irrespective of the impact they had at the time, why they were made, the story behind them. I don’t know what motivated the artists, which means that the paintings have an intrinsic quality. I think Goethe called it the “essential dimension”, the thing that makes great works of art great.

GN: I beg your pardon?!

And still, they don’t understand.