Don Quijote 1965

Here is the story: I imagine Esteban Frances conjured this stage set for Don Quijote with oils, perhaps wrestling with how to make flat scenery feel dreamlike and full of depth. I feel for Frances trying to work out that perfect blue, and how to make it recede. The gate shimmers with hints of gold, like something out of a fairy tale. Then there are the trees – they’re kind of spooky, not quite a forest and not quite real. I bet he reworked those a bunch of times, trying to make them feel like a place where Quijote's imagination could run wild. I love how painters respond to painters – how their ideas get handed down and changed. You can see echoes of de Chirico's theatrical, unsettling spaces here, even as Frances is doing his own thing. It’s like they're all talking to each other across time. A painting like this reminds me that we’re all just messing around with color and space, trying to figure out what it all means, one brushstroke at a time.