The Nest of the Egg 1960

Here is a painting by Alexander Calder, made in 1960, of floating shapes and a nest made of egg. It's all about gesture: the nest itself is a scribble of black lines and a heavy ring. Then there is a sort of red sun, which is a ring of red with a blue inner lining. The egg itself is conspicuously missing. What was Calder thinking? There are all these dark, hard, ovoid pebbles sort of surrounding the perimeter. I imagine he was improvising and seeing what could happen—the painting is the product of not knowing! And that nest looks precarious, like a bunch of toothpicks, hardly a safe place. It reminds me a little of Miro and his biomorphic forms and surrealist landscapes. All these artists are constantly in conversation, inspiring each other across time. Uncertainty is part of the process. The not-knowing becomes a method for the artist and for the viewer.