Universal / Tragedy

In Rothko's essay on the plastics in Art, has an interesting view of God and painting. He sees all painting as small variants pointing to a universal God, with inexhaustible variables. He stresses that painting has always been the attainment towards some universal, rather than some imitation of nature. I think that there has to be a direct link to the universal in every painting.

Aristotle says that tragedy has to be about someone great with a major flaw of there own. This can give the catharsis needed for the reader to feel that purification.
Every painting needs to have that human element. I like to use the word tragic, but human drama will also fit.

I don't like to think of my paintings as landscapes. I would rather think of them as scenes where the human element takes place. The difficulty is having it all come together at the same time. The figure and its setting need to come arrive at the same time.

It would be wrong to deny the influence of cinema on my paintings. The element of time in cinema can be translated to painting. The viewer has to learn how to read the painting.
Everyone has the language of categorizing representations and sorting them out in terms of understanding what the are seeing.
I hope painting to be the direct index to what's being said. Pointing to what you want to say like an arrow or a finger. Poets do this through figuration of words and phrases, arranging in a sensuous way to lure the reader to understand by turning the literal meaning to a glimpse with shear delight.